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Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 – Time Machine Network Backup)

By | on Dec 7, 2011 | 15 Comments
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2011-11-11 08.22.53 am
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[box type="tick" style="rounded" border="full"]Download the Using Apple OS X Lion Server at Home eBook Now

If you've been enjoying our Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server series, then make sure you pick up a copy of the accompanying eBook. You'll find additional chapters and information on using OS X Lion Server to power your digital home that won't be available here on the site, and with all of our walkthroughs available in one convenient document (ePub or PDF), it's far easier to install and configure your server without having to click backward and forwards to the website.

Buy Using OS X Lion Server at Home – £14.99

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Over the last few parts of our (now extensive) guide to Apple OS X Lion Server, we've taken a look at some of the more differentiating features of the platform – namely the Shared Address Book, Shared Calendar and iChat Server. Today we'll take a step back and look at one of the most important features in any home server platform – client backup.

I'm sure there's very little need to convince WGS readers of the importance of client backup – your data, your applications, your configuration settings all held hostage by the risk of a future hard drive failure, power surge or (even more likely in my house) catastrophic user blunder. So it makes a lot of sense to back up your clients to another device. Most of the mainstream NAS devices now support network back up of Macs via Time Machine, as does Windows Home Server 2011 (with a lot of help from third party developers). As you'd expect, OS X Lion Server also supports Mac client backup via Time Machine, and the good news is that it's very easy to do.

Before we walk through the steps, one note on storage. As I mentioned way back in Part 2 of the series, Mac hardware looks beautiful but isn't the most flexible when it comes to internal storage upgrades. If you have a lot of data to backup, then it's well worth considering an additional storage device to handle that data – I talk through some of the options in that part of the series.

Okay, now head over to your server and open up the Server app. In the now familiar left hand column, you'll see an option called Time Machine. Click it!

2011 12 06 08.31.31 pm 300x289 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)

The Time Machine panel in Server app is very straightforward indeed. Hit the giant On/Off switch to start the Time Machine network service. You'll be asked which volume (if you have more than one) you wish to use for Time Machine backups. If you wish to change your mind, lower down the panel, you'll see a section which allows you to select one of your server's volumes for backup storage. Click the Edit button if you wish to change the default option.

2011 12 06 08.40.09 pm 300x283 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)

That's all you need to do on the server. So, we now need to configure our Mac computers to backup to the Lion Server, rather than a local hard drive. On one of those Macs, open Time Machine (it's in the Applications menu in Finder). If you haven't yet set up a Time Machine backup location, you'll be encouraged to do so, otherwise you'll be presented with the standard Time Machine application panel.

2011 11 11 08.22.53 am 300x153 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)At this point you should be able to select a Backups folder on your server. Note that we have two entries for the Mac Server in our screenshot below – one pointing directly to the server, the other, though stating “Mac Server” to an iCloud address (more of which in a future guide). Select Backups on your server hardware and click Use Backup Disk.

2011 12 06 08.44.57 pm 300x202 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)

You'll be asked for your server username and password, following which you should be ready to backup. A countdown will begin and your backup should soon start.

2011 12 06 08.54.49 pm 300x214 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)

To check on progress, click the Time Machine icon in the system bar at the top of the screen.

time 300x138 Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server (Part 14 Time Machine Network Backup)

Complete the same steps for all of your Macs, and that's Time Machine backup over the network taken care of.

[box type="tick" style="rounded" border="full"]Download the Using Apple OS X Lion Server at Home eBook Now

If you've been enjoying our Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server series, then make sure you pick up a copy of the accompanying eBook. You'll find additional chapters and information on using OS X Lion Server to power your digital home that won't be available here on the site, and with all of our walkthroughs available in one convenient document (ePub or PDF), it's far easier to install and configure your server without having to click backward and forwards to the website.

Buy Using OS X Lion Server at Home – £14.99

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Terry Walsh is the founder of We Got Served. He started the community in February 2007 with a mission to help families everywhere figure out the technology needed to run the modern home. He lives in Silverstone, UK with his wife, Karen, two sons, Jamie and Elliot and Poppy the Cat. Born and raised in Liverpool, England, Terry has been awarded Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional Award each year since 2008 for his work on We Got Served.

  • Talonthego

    What about backing up PC clients?

    • Terry Walsh

      Coming up in the next chapter – unfortunately, it requires a third-party solution, as Time Machine doesn’t support PC backup, so we’ll be using some imaging software to backup the PC and push it to Lion Server over the network.

    • Jaxon

      My questions as well and hoping we see in a future chapter.  Hoping it’s not as difficult as backing up OSX devices to WHS2011.

      • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

        Yep, working on this for the next chapter. As you may have guessed, Time Machine doesn’t support PC backup, so we’ll need to look at a third party solution to image the PC and push it over the network to the Lion Server. A little work to configure, but do-able. 

        • Jaxon

          Looking forward to your report.  Keep up the great work on an excellent series!

          • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

            Thanks Jaxon :-)

  • Alex

    What about time machine for the server? Can I use the same disk to backup my clients and then also backup my server? 
    Do I need to time machine my clients if i use network home folders and i time machine my server?

  • Anonymous

    My question is about how to configure Lion Server to support multiple disks for TIme Machine backups?  I have a new Mac Mini with Lion Server and multiple external drives that I want to use for Time Machine backups for multiple OSX Lion MacBooks.  I have looked everywhere..and what seems like a simple request…is sure hard to figure out.

    Any and all help is appreciated.  (BTW, your book has been very helpful so far)

    David

    • Spica

      OSX 10.7 Server (Lion) only supports a single drive for network TM backups of client computers.  However OSX 10.6 Server (Snow Leopard) supported designating multiple server drives for network TM backups.  This change was one of the many ‘simplifications’ of OSX server during the upgrade from 10.6 to 10.7.  If you’re handy with Terminal and digging around, there’s probably a way to designate additional drives as network backup destinations, but the GUI in Server only allows you to set one.

      The way I run personally is that I have 2 external drives attached to my MacMini Server for backup purposes.  The 1st external drive is used as the TM destination for backing up the server itself.  the 2nd external drive is used as the network backup destination for other Macs in the house to use for their TM backups.  

      (In addition to the 2 drives that usually connected to the server, I also have a pair of backup drives that I store off-site and bring home periodically – attach them to the server set everything up to use these as the TM backup destination, run the TM backups, and change the settings back to the normal configuration).  And also use Carbon Copy Cloner to have bootable system images for all systems.

  • Anonymous

    i’ve several mac mini/lion server installs and am now getting an alert in Server that “the 
     disk drive may not support Time Machine backup over the network.”  i’m using OWC external drives both on usb and firewire and getting this alert.  in one installation, it had worked well for several months and then failed for no apparent reason.  a new install at another site won’t work off the git-go.  has anyone experienced this?

  • Wayne

    Terry, have you considered a chapter devoted to backing up the OS X server offsite?  On my WHS 2011 server today, I use (2) external USB hard drives to backup the server.  1 drive is connected to the server (actively backing up), and the other drive is offsite in a safe place.  A bit overkill I admit, but, now that most of my life seems to be stored on the server, I have to protect in case it gets damaged, stolen, totally fails, etc…

    Is there a way to implement some similar external backup scheme to back up the OS X Server?

    Love this guide, keep up the great work!

    Wayne

    • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

      Definitely one to think about, Wayne – thanks for the idea!

      • Wayne

         Terry,

        Thanks!  I love your eBook so much, I am planning to convert my 100% Microsoft family (including WHS 2011) to Macs and OS X Lion server.  It’s time to upgrade the equipment and I was thinking Macs anyway, so your guide is timely.

        The purpose of my question is that I am concerned about protecting data on the external drive (Drobo S in your eBook example).  I’ve read a few reports about the Drobos randomly losing their minds and corrupting data.  In that case I’d want to have my Drobo data (shared network drives in your eBook example) backed up somewhere else… just in case.  If I understand your guide correctly, the Drobo could be a vulnerability since all of the network data and Time Machine backup data reside on the Drobo.  Even if I could back up the Drobo to an external USB drive, I would feel better about having my data protected.

        I am evaluating ways to do that now.  If you like, I’ll keep you posted on what I figure out.  May help if you ever decide to add an additional “data protection” chapter.

        Thanks so much for your efforts, I love your site!

        Wayne Foreman
        Atlanta, GA – USA

        • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

          Hi Wayne

          Thanks for the kind feedback – feel free to post a quick review in Amazon for the book too!

          Don’t get locked into thinking that Drobo is the only solution there – there’s a few good competing storage solutions out there from LaCie and others that may offer a good external backup option for the drive. Check whether the devices support an rsync feature and you could buy two devices for your primary and secondary backups with automatic synchronisation.

          Happy hunting!

  • Jason Hines

    Have you figured out why there is an iCloud backup location? I’m concerned I may have opened up too much on my router since I can see my server in the shared devices in finder even when I’m not on my network.

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