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December 31, 2007

tips

Remote time travel made easy

Posted Dec. 31, ’07, 7:48 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Tips

Time MachineWe’ve previously covered a couple ways to force your Mac to execute a Time Machine backup on your own schedule instead of Apple’s once-an-hour interval. But say you’re on another computer—a MacBook, for example—and want to force your desktop to run a Time Machine backup. Yeah, you could use screen sharing, but what if you’re on a pre-Leopard Mac, or Back to My Mac isn’t working (preposterous, I know!).

Our colleague Monsieur Griffiths over at Macworld’s Mac OS X Hints blog has the solution to these woes: force Time Machine to run a backup via Terminal. That’s right: you can even force your machine to backup from the Windows box at work. Here’s the integral command you’ll need to run once you’ve logged in via ssh:

/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper &
Simple, isn’t it? Once you’ve run it, you’re all set; Time Machine will start chugging away back on your Mac, and you’re free to go about your business once again.


4 Comments

nemo said:

I'm just wondering how it's possible to have Time Machine on pre-Leopard Mac ;-)

December 31, 2007 8:32 AM
Dan Moren Author Profile Page said:

@nemo: My point was that you may wish to execute the Time Machine backup on your Leopard machine from a second, non-Leopard machine.

December 31, 2007 8:50 AM
Walt Author Profile Page said:

Now I'm curious Dan. Wouldn't it be easier to just let Time Machine handle it's own backup schedule? I mean, if I'm leaving the other (Leopard - let's get that record straight) Mac on so that I can remote initiate a Time Machine backup from this (non-Leopard) Mac, I could have just left Time Machine on so I wouldn't have to use this Mac to initiate the Time Machine? Saving me even *more* time. Right? If I leave that Mac on anyways so that I can remote it, I might as well just leave Time Machine on. What am I missing?

Or am I getting into a temporal paradox?

December 31, 2007 3:08 PM
dano said:

Has anyone else thought this a little...eccentric? I mean, kicking off TM from a remote machine? Before I go and embarrass myself by making some ridiculous analogy to a remotely accessible home range/oven that is programmable via the internet, let me ask 2 questions - if Time Machine is running (assuming the standard once an hour), why would you need to kick off a backup (assuming you're at work, using...your employers' Windows machine)? 2nd question, if TM is not running, does the command line still work, and is it a one-time run (okay, I know, that was 3 questions total).

January 1, 2008 2:45 PM

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