Mac Backup without Login (Automated)

Question

Mac Backup without Login (Automated)

I am looking for a way to backup a mac using time machine without having to login as a user. But i want this automated.

So here is my scenario, We have some Macs and they are never in use on a sunday, so this is when backups would happen. The Macs will be set to boot up at a specific time and boot down as a specific time but we are using a external hard drive as our backup drive which gets shared over the network. At the moment i cant find a away to mount that drive from the .sparsebundle file when the Mac boots up but i can set it to mount when a user logs in.

So the question is, is there any way to mount the drive and start it backing up by writing a script for when the Mac boots up? any help?

Thanks

Posted on Mar 19, 2015 4:16 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Mar 19, 2015 8:45 AM in response to Harveylewis12

If the backup drive is directly connected to the computer, rather than via the network, then there should not be a sparsebundle on it. There should instead be a folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the Time Machine destination.

I suggest you set the drive aside and stop using it until you're sure you'll no longer need the data. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start a new backup on another drive. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway.

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Answer 2

Mar 19, 2015 9:30 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi,

Thank you for the reply...

This Mac i am testing on has no use to us and the hard drive has no backups on it either as this is something we are looking to implement into out setup for our 5 iMacs. The drive needs to be a network shared drive so we do not have to buy a hard drive for each machine.

Is there any automated code that can be wrote so when the Mac is turned on it will run the .sparsebundle file to mount the drive and then start the backup without logging into the machine as any user. i have tried mounting the drive while not logged in by using the >console to access the terminal from the login screen, but this didn't seem to work, just wondering if what i want is possible or not?

Thank you 🙂

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Mar 19, 2015 9:40 AM in response to Harveylewis12

I guess I wasn't clear. You should not be backing up to a disk image on a local drive; only on a network drive. If you back up other Macs to that drive over the network, each one will have its own disk image, and each of those will be mounted and unmounted automatically on the client. If you want to use the existing disk image for local backups, incorrectly, then you will have to figure out a way to mount it when needed. I don't have a suggestion.

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