Macintosh Backups
About
We provide nightly network backups for supported hosts running Facilities-supported Macintosh operating systems, including:
- Mac os v10.3, v10.4, v10.5
The backup system used on the above platforms is Teradactyl.
Important notes
- Macintosh hosts are not automatically placed in the backup system; backups must be specifically requested. See the section below on how to tell if a host is being backed up if you are uncertain if your host is receiving backups.
- If you add a disk to a host, or change or rename the partitioning, you must tell us in order for the new disk or partition to receive backups. To request backups, send mail to help@cs.cmu.edu with the name and CMU asset number of the host.
TiBs client installation
If TiBs was not installed on your Macintosh when Facilities installed the OS you can install it yourself or contact help@cs.cmu.edu and ask us to install it.
Installation instructions
- From the finder, click on the Go menu and choose Connect to Server.
- Type afp://osx.srv.cs.cmu.edu as the server's address and click Connect.
- Click on the Guest Login radio button and click Connect.
- Mount the Public volume on your desktop and go to the TiBs Backup Client folder. Choose the corresonding folder for either a desktop system or a laptop.
- Run the installation package that corresponds to the version of OS X you are using, either v10.3, v10.4 or v10.5.
After installation reboot your machine, it will now be ready to be added to backups. Please note that a request still must be placed to SCS Operations for the machine to be added to our backup server. This can be done by mailing help@cs.cmu.edu.
Limitations on backups
We can currently perform backups for up to 100 GB of data on a Macintosh. If you have more than 100 GB of data or have other special backup requirements, please contact help@cs.cmu.edu to discuss the matter.
How to tell if a Macintosh is being backed up
To see if your Macintosh is being backed up you may use the LastBackup script found in the folder /Applications/Utilites. If the machine is being backed up this should return the last backup date. If this script does not exist or returns an error you are most likely not being backed up.
In addition to the lastBackup script mail may also be sent to help@cs.cmu.edu to inquire on backup status.
How to request a restore for a Macintosh
To request a restore send mail to help@cs.cmu.edu with the following information:
- Name of the machine that the file(s) were located on.
- The full path to the file(s).
- The most recent time period during which these file(s) existed.
- A destination for the restore.