Mounting Samba on MAC OSX

MAC OSx has the built-in capability to mount samba shares. If you wish to use this feature to mount your home directory, please follow these instructions.

Note that you cannot mount samba from the wireless unless you connect to the vpn.

  1. Click on finder or desktop to bring up the finder tool bar
  2. Click on Go --> Connect to Server
  3. In the Address box supply:
    smb://smb.cs.toronto.edu/username (where username is your CS username)
  4. Click connect
  5. In the SMB/CIFS Authentication window supply your CS username and password.
    The workgroup field can be left blank
  6. Click OK

Now your home directory should be mapped, and available under Finder -> Shared -> smb.cs.toronto.edu -> [username].

Known Problems

  • When editing files in your public_html directory (or another directory that is a symbolic link you may experience problems saving your files with certain editors such as TextEdit.

    We recommend that you use one of the following editors instead:

    • TextMate
    • Gedit
    • Sea Monkey (html editor)
    • OpenOffice

    At the time that this was written these editors were known to work but future updates may result in these applications behaving in a similar manner to TextEdit.

  • If you receive an error message, there may be a problem with your password. Try resyncing your password with our samba password file. The easiest way to do this is to reset your password via passwd. Wait 30 minutes and try again.

Regular backups with iBackup

If you prefer a more automated backup mechanism, you may wish to try iBackup.

  • Download from http://www.grapefruit.ch/iBackup/
  • Install on your machine.
  • A window may pop up saying '"iBackup" can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer."
    • Click OK
    • Go to System Preferences, then to Security & Privacy
    • Click lock icon, type in your credentials, click Unlock
    • iBackup will be listed under 'Allow apps downloaded from'...
    • Click 'Open anyway' button
  • Once iBackup is installed, it must be configured. You will need to have your home directory mounted via samba for this initial configuration (see Mounting Samba on MAC OSX above).
    • On the top menu, click iBackup -> Preferences
    • Under Profiles -> Backup, click the 'Connection' tab in the right pane.
    • Check the 'Connect to server' box.
    • In the Connect to Server text field, type in 'smb://smb.cs.toronto.edu/'
    • In the Username and Password fields, enter your CS credentials
    • Click 'Disconnect from server after backup' if you want iBackup to eject and close your smb connection when its done performing a backup.
    • Under the 'Advanced' tab, uncheck the box that says 'Delete any files in the backup folder that are removed from the source folder."
    • Also under the 'Advanced' tab, check the radio button for 'Rsync for every backup'.
    • If you wish to perform periodic automatic backups...
      • Click the 'Automation' tab.
      • You'll see 'Set frequency options' with drop down menus to choose a frequency, date and time. In this example, we will set the frequency to back up every day at 12:00.
      • Click the first drop down menu (after 'Set frequency options') and select 'Daily'
      • In the time area, set the time to '12:00'
      • Of the four options below 'Set frequency options', leave the box for 'Quit iBackup after backup' unchecked and click the box for 'Do nothing'
    • Close the Preferences window and return to the iBackup window
    • Select the Backup path by clicking the yellow folder icon under 'Set Path'. This will open a 'Choose a Folder' window. Click smb.cs.toronto.edu, then click your username. Click Choose. The program will create a folder called 'backup' in your Home directory.
    • Using the 'Source Folder' and 'Source folder items' panes, check the boxes for all the folders and/or files that you wish iBackup to include in backups.
    • Click 'Backup Now' to backup your files, or if you configured the automated backups you can leave it up to the iBackup scheduler.

Restoring files with iBackup

Simply by backing up your data with iBackup, your files are stored in your CS homedir, from which they are archived to CSLab's offsite backup system. We can restore from these archives upon request.

We have found some elements of the iBackup internal restore mechanism to be counter-intuitive and suggest that if you explore restoring files on your own through the iBackup interface, that you use caution. For example, the default behavior on a restore is to overwrite local copies of files with older versions from the archive. Should you accidentally restore an entire directory when you wanted only one file from within that directory, you will have effectively reverted the entire directory to the older copy.

We recommend that should you find yourself in a situation where you have lost files which you know to be archived via iBackup, that you contact your PoC with a restore request.