others-how to format disk to be used as time machine disk with asus router?

Apr 15, 2022

1. Purpose

In this post, I would demonstrate how to format removable disk to be used time machine backup disk with a router.

Just as the following diagram shows:

2. Solution

First, you should enable ssh remote login from local computer to your router, just open your browser and naviagte to the system settings page of the router, and then enable the ssh login as follows:

➜  lanrensms git:(master) ✗ ssh [email protected]
The authenticity of host '192.168.50.1 (192.168.50.1)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:47kOn/xFM9JyjabcdefghwQ/tCod+FBB96JUCqJAGpo.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.50.1' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/home/root#
admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/home/root#

2.3 Check the disk status

admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/home/root# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 124.6 GB, 124613257600 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15151 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sdb1               1       15152   121702368+  c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204885504 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table

2.4 Format the disk

We should format the /dev/sda as ext3 format, which is compatible with the apple machine learning.

admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/home/root# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
/dev/sda contains a ext3 file system
    last mounted on Sat Apr 16 23:05:32 2022
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Creating filesystem with 244190645 4k blocks and 61054976 inodes
Filesystem UUID: b87878b6-694b-4d84-911d-a9f450b8029a
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
    32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
    4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
    102400000, 214990848

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: 7453/7453

2.5 Mount it

admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/mnt# mkdir /mnt/sda
admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/mnt# ll
drwxrwxrwx    2 admin    root            40 Apr 17 17:05 sda/
drwxrwxrwx    1 admin    root         65536 Jan  1  1970 sdb1/
admin@RT-AC68U-5720:/tmp/mnt# mount /dev/sda /mnt/sda

2.6 Enable time machine in asus router

2.7 Select the remote disk from mac time machine settings

3. Summary

In this post, I demonstrated how to format disk to be used as time machine disk in asus router. That’s it, thanks for your reading.