Time Machine recipe

Objective: backup a Mac to a samba share.

For reference: I am running MacOS Sonoma 14.3.1 and default Samba (2:4.17.12) on Debian stable (Bookworm).

On the Samba side, create a new share and add a section to /etc/samba/smb.conf

[Time Machine]
path = /data/tm
fruit:time machine = yes
writeable = yes
public = yes
guest ok = yes
force user = joe

Set up the correct path and force user to reflect the adequate local directory and user who owns that directory, and restart samba.

On MacOS, open Time Machine settings and add the new share. You need to be on the same local network. You can set up a password for that backup (recommended). Start the backup immediately and check that it works.

Tip: to speed things up on Mac OS you can increase Time Machine priority by issuing this command in a terminal:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

and restore it afterwards with:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=1

Hope it can be useful for somebody else!