Mac – way to automatically mount a volume from another Mac on start

mountNetworktime-machine

I'm using my Mac Mini as a TimeMachine host. I have a couple of external drives plugged in via USB. TimeMachine doesn't work unless I use Finder to manually Browse the network and mount the volume after each reboot or Wifi change (e.g. when I've taken the MacBook on a work trip).

Is there a way to have macOS or a script on my MBP to automagically mount the volume on the Mac Mini? Maybe something that checks every 30 minutes and remounts if it is not already?

Edit: I have two home Wifis – one super-fast 4G with limited bandwidth, and the default one backed by ADSL, so I switch to the 4G one when I need to videoconference, and back to the default one to use the printer or connect to other devices at home.

Best Answer

The way to mount the drives on the Client at login is:

Mount the Network Share.
Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.
Drag the drive's icon and drop it onto the list of Login Items for your user.

WiFi change? How often do you change Wifi? If the TM share and client aren't on the same network, then obvs that won't work.

However, TM shares should normally work without the need for a Finder connection, so there may be another remedy to your original problem.

Related Solutions

How to Mount Network Share as Volume via SSH

Use HomeBrew to install fuse4x and sshfs

The commands to install are:

brew install sshfs

when you run it, it gives two other commands that I needed to run in order to install the fuse4x kernel extension. Run them.

Then, to mount the ssh filesystem

mkdir ~/mymountdir
sshfs username@hostname:/home/thedir ~/mymountdir

it will ask you for your password.

MacOS – Why does Lion mount a network volume twice at login

AFP mounts are tied to both a path and an authentication.

An exported volume might have multiple paths. For example, an OS X server might export its root, the /Users/ folder, and the /Groups/ folder. Each of these can be mounted separately. In your case, your NAS may be exporting its volume under multiple paths. It might even be exporting the same path multiple times. Check the NAS' settings.

Each AFP mount is tied to a particular authentication (username/password). You can mount the same volume/path multiple times using different authentications. Its possible that the credentials you used in those two different places are subtly different. Depending on the NAS, it might even come down to whether your long username or short username are used. Your NAS might not even require a username (only a password) and might ignore whatever username is given. OS X has no way of knowing that and so two different usernames (long versus short) might produce two different mounts even though they lead to the exact same volume.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to Mount Network Share as Volume via SSH

MacOS – Why does Lion mount a network volume twice at login

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