• Mac OS X

    Device Snapshots and Crafting A Restore Device User Experience for Macs

    I recently worked on something where a design requirement was to build a good snapshot restore option but not to use Time Machine backups. You can capture a snapshot of a Mac without enabling Time Machine. To do so, you’d still use the same binary as you would with Time Machine, /usr/bin/tmutil. To do so, simply use the snapshot verb as follows: /usr/bin/tmutil snapshot Once you’ve run that, you get output similar to the following: Created local snapshot with date: 2019-04-12-110248 Now you have a snapshot that can be used to restore a Mac using the steps shown in this article: https://maclovin.org/blog-native/2017/restoring-from-a-snapshot-with-apfs. You can make a snapshot at the provisioning…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    The ins and outs of using tmutil to backup, restore, and review Time Machine backups

    Since some of the more interesting features of Time Machine Server are gone, let’s talk about doing even more than what was previously available in that interface by using the command line to access Time Machine. As with any other command, you should probably start by reading the man page. For Time Machine, that would be: man tmutil Sometimes, the incantation of the command you’re looking for might even be available at the bottom of the man page. Feel free to use the space bar a few times to skip to the bottom, or q to quit the man interface. In addition to the man page, there’s a help command,…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Use The Time Machine Service In OS X Yosemite Server

    The Time Machine service in Yosemite Server hasn’t changed much from the service in previous operating systems. To enable the Time Machine service, open the Server app, click on Time Machine in the SERVICES sidebar. If the service hasn’t been enabled to date, the ON/OFF switch will be in the OFF position and no “Backup destination” will be shown in the Settings pane. Click on the ON button to see the New Destination screen, used to configure a list of volumes as a destinations for Time Machine backups. The selection volume should be large enough to have space for all of the users that can potentially use the Time Machine…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Use Time Machine Server In Mavericks Server To Backup Macs

    The Time Machine service in Mountain Lion Server hasn’t changed much from the service in Lion Server. To enable the Time Machine service, open the Server app, click on Time Machine in the SERVICES sidebar. If the service hasn’t been enabled to date, the ON/OFF switch will be in the OFF position and no “Backup destination” will be shown in the Settings pane. Click on the ON button to see the New Destination screen, used to configure a list of volumes as a destinations for Time Machine backups. The selection volume should be large enough to have space for all of the users that can potentially use the Time Machine…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Mass Deploying Time Machine in Mac OS X Lion

    A lot of environments want to use Time Machine at scale. But prior to Lion there hasn’t been a simple way to do so. Apple has introduced a new weapon in the war to backup client computers in the new command tmutil that was introduced in OS X Lion. The tmutil command allows administrators to enable Time Machine, make snapshots, kick off backups, delete snapshots, perform restores, configure options within Time Machine and, with a little scripting, build a centralized dashboard, pulling in Time Machine statistics from clients. Enabling Time Machine The first thing to know is that pretty much everything you do in Time Machine is going to require…