[MacTUG] Tweaking Timemachine on OS X server to be more granular when backing up clients

Thu Sep 16 13:52:26 EDT 2010

Hi Don,

Solution is to use Preference manifests for these details just as you would use them to control Safari fine details or other apps with use a well populated .plist files. Some apps don't use .plist and thus you have no control like this (Eg. Firefox).

In Workgroup Manager create a computer group named “Details - TIme Machine Backup”
Select the TIme Machine Backup computer group
Click Preferences
Click the Details tab
Import the Time Machine preferences from /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine, selecting Manage imported preferences Once (see Adding to the Preference Editor’s List)
Double–click com.apple.TimeMachine manifest
Click the Once disclosure triangle
Delete all keys from the com.apple.TimeMachine manifest by selecting them and clicking Delete, with the exception of:
	• SkipPaths
	• SkipSystemFiles
Click the SkipPaths disclosure triangle
Delete all the keys inside of the SkipPaths key by selecting them and clicking Delete
Select SkipPaths
Click New Key
Type /Users/Shared in the Value column
Repeat the two previous steps adding the following values within the SkipPaths key:
	• ~/Desktop
	• /System
	• ~/Downloads
	• ~/Public
	• ~/Sites
	• /Library
	• ~/Library
	• ~/Documents
	• /Applications
Select SkipSystemFiles
Select “true” from the Value menu
Click Done

Time machine is a computer centric backup not a per user backup from a MCX perspective, hence why you have to create computer group.
Oh and skipping Parallels image would be..
~/Library/Parallels

Hope this helps.

Steve

On 2010-09-14, at 5:20 PM, Donald Duff-McCracken wrote:

> Hi Guys
> 
> Is anyone using TimeMachine on OS X server controlled by workgroup manager to back up clients. I am and it works great. The only thing that bugs me is that you do not have any way, through the GUI at least, to tell time machine to not back up certain directories. According to some folks on the web you can add these yourself via editing the MCX prefs in the ‘Details’ pane.
> 
> I think this should work. In fact, when I am setting up TimeMachine on a non-manged machine and tell it to exclude certain files, the plist it manually and locally generates looks exactly like this portion I have snipped out below from workgroup Manager:
> 
> <image.png>
> This generates the following in the com.apple.MCX.TimeMachine.plist in the Managed Prefs folder on the local machine:
>>    <key>SkipPaths</key>
>>     <array>
>>         <string>/System</string>
>>         <string>/Applications</string>
>>         <string>/User/Shared</string>
>>         <string>/Library/Parallels</string>
>>         <string>dsmccrac/Library/Parallels</string>
> 
> What is interesting is that there is a second TimeMachine  plist that gets generated in the Managed Prefs folder called com.apple.TimeMachine.plist and it does not have the info in the SkipPaths array:
>> <integer>0</integer>
>>     <key>SkipPaths</key>
>>     <array/>
>>     <key>SkipSystemFiles</key>
>>     <true/>
>> 
> Now this second plist is actually larger with more info in it, so I am thinking the MCX TimeMachine plist is used to generate it and for some reason the skippaths array info is not passed. Does anyone have any experience playing with timemachine on the server??
> 
> Thanks...
> don
> 
> ------------------------------------
> Donald Duff-McCracken 
> Technical Services Manager
> Mapping, Analysis & Design
> Faculty of Environmental Studies
> University of Waterloo
> (519) 888-4567 x32151
> http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/computing/people/don.html
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