Re: using a NetBSD host as an iSCSI target for OSX (time machine) (or other mechanisms)

[George Michaelson <ggm%pobox.com@localhost>]

To reply to my own mail, I found an iSCSI 'initiator' for mac free for download 
from:

 http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/support/faq.php?pi=11&fi=51


And I was able to make this attach to the default iSCSI target in NetBSD 
current, and then OSX "Disk Utility" immediately said 'you need to partition 
this drive' and installed an HFS+ partition. So, it looks to me like with one 
non-standard OSX installation, I can get what I want.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will experiment with AFP backed, and Steve 
Bellovin's idea of a .DMG file on the device too. iSCSI is said to be very 
fast, and quite reliable so I'm drawn to it, if it works.

I think I can probably do the disk-image thing by using OSX "Disk Utility" to 
make a sparse file disk image, and then migrate it to the NFS/AFP/Samba server. 
A couple of the pointers document this as a step in the "T-M on network 
filestore" process anyway.

The usual 'RAID is not innately, of itself the same as backup' comments apply. 
Its *how you use* the RAID disk which matters. In this case, I am using it as 
one of a couple of different Time-Machine targets.

-G