Creating Backups to TrueNAS

Create a Shared Folder

  1. Ensure you have already created a ZFS disk pool in Storage > Pool as a place to store your backups. If you need help with this step, see the TrueNAS documentation.

  2. In the TrueNAS UI, create a user for writing backups. Go to Accounts > Users > ADD.

    add user

  3. Enter a Full Name, Username, and Password for the new user. Near the bottom, click "Shell: nologin", and enable "Samba Authentication". Click "SUBMIT". In this example, we will use "Start9 Server Backup" for the full name and "s9backup" for the username. You may choose a different values.

    create user

  4. Go to Services > SMB. enable SMB and check the box "Start Automatically".

    enable SMB

  5. Open a shell and create your backups directory. In this example, we will create a directory called start9backupshare in the root of our storage pool. You may choose a different name or path.

    mkdir /mnt/zpooldisk1/start9backupshare

    create dir

  6. Under Sharing > Windows Shares (SMB), drill down into the path until you find the directory to be shared. Give the share a name and click "SUBMIT". In this example we will name the share the nasshare. You may choose a different name.

    find dir

  7. A Configure ACL dialog will emerge. Click "CONFIGURE NOW".

    configure acl

  8. You will be brought to an Edit ACL screen. Under "User", click "Apply User" and select the username we created in step 3. On the right-hand side, Permissions Type should be set to "Basic" and Permissions should be set to "Full Control". Click SAVE

    edit acl

Create a Backup

  1. In StartOS, go to System > Create Backup.

  2. Click "Open New".

  3. Complete the form:

    1. Hostname: The name of your TrueNAS device on the LAN. (e.g truenas.local)

    2. Path - The name of your shared folder, not the full directory path (e.g. "nasshare" from the example).

    3. Username - Your TrueNAS user who owns the shared folder. (e.g. "s9backup" from the example)

    4. Password - Your password for the above user.

  4. Click "Connect".

    
- If you receive `Filesystem I/O Error mount error(13): Permission denied`, ensure you have entered all the correct values in the form. The hostname can be particularly tricky.