Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Lion, Time Machine and AFP feature bits.

Update2: SMB should be supported in _r2 version. Probably not a very good idea unless your network connection is solid. Also remember that you can't restore the whole system from a TM image on an SMB share.. at least not from OS X boot disk.
Update1: Please try updating your NAS firmware first; most manufacturers will be releasing updates that make their devices Lion-compatible in the near future.
These new flags made mandatory in Lion help with AFP session recovery after network connection loss, so you will be at a higher risk of data corruption when using this workaround over spotty WiFi.

'The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features' message means that
Lion's backupd now requires 'TM Lock Stealing' and 'Server Reply Cache' AFP features on all TM destinations.

TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes workaround affects the UI but has no effect on actual daemon behaviour.
So, seeing as how I'm not going to buy a Time Capsule any time soon, an idea was born:
What if we could make backupd work with those unsupported volumes and unleash any potentially data-munching-monster-ish bugs this unsupportedness shall surely entail? Sounds like a plan!

tldr: Download, unzip and run the script.

^^ A dylib that fakes those new shiny AFP feature bits for your old musty half-dead early 20th century NAS-o-saurus.

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk; data-corru¾*{5Ë# may occur!

Boring tech details: just read the source.