Recovering Data From An Old Encrypted Time Machine Backup

Recovering data from a backup should be an easy thing to do. At least this is what you expect. Yesterday I had a problem which should have been easy to solve, but it was not. I hope this blog post can help others who face the same problem.


The problem

1. I had an encrypted Time Machine backup which was not used for months
2. This backup was not on an official Apple Time Capsule or on a USB HDD, but on a WD MyCloud NAS
3. I needed files from this backup
4. After running out of time I only had SSH access to the macOS, no GUI

The struggle

By default, Time Machine is one of the best and easiest backup solution I have seen. As long as you stick to the default use case, where you have one active backup disk, life is pink and happy. But this was not my case.

As always, I started to Google what shall I do. One of the first options recommended that I add the backup disk to Time Machine, and it will automagically show the backup snapshots from the old backup. Instead of this, it did not show the old snapshots but started to create a new backup. Panic button has been pressed, backup canceled, back to Google.


Other tutorials recommend to click on the Time Machine icon and pressing alt (Option) key, where I can choose "Browse other backup disks". But this did not list the old Time Machine backup. It did list the backup when selecting disks in Time Machine preferences, but I already tried and failed that way.


YAT (yet another tutorial) recommended to SSH into the NAS, and browse the backup disk, as it is just a simple directory where I can see all the files. But all the files inside where just a bunch of nonsense, no real directory structure.

YAT (yet another tutorial) recommended that I can just easily browse the content of the backup from the Finder by double-clicking on the sparse bundle file. After clicking on it, I can see the disk image on the left part of the Finder, attached as a new disk.
Well, this is true, but because of some bug, when you connect to the Time Capsule, you don't see the sparse bundle file. And I got inconsistent results, for the WD NAS, double-clicking on the sparse bundle did nothing. For the Time Capsule, it did work.
At this point, I had to leave the location where the backup was present, and I only had remote SSH access. You know, if you can't solve a problem, let's complicate things by restrict yourself in solutions.

Finally, I tried to check out some data forensics blogs, and besides some expensive tools, I could find the solution.

The solution

Finally, a blog post provided the real solution - hdiutil.
The best part of hdiutil is that you can provide the read-only flag to it. This can be very awesome when it comes to forensics acquisition.


To mount any NAS via SMB:
mount_smbfs afp://<username>@<NAS_IP>/<Share_for_backup> /<mountpoint>

To mount a Time Capsule share via AFP:
mount_afp afp://any_username:password@<Time_Capsule_IP>/<Share_for_backup> /<mountpoint>

And finally this command should do the job:
hdiutil attach test.sparsebundle -readonly

It is nice that you can provide read-only parameter.

If the backup was encrypted and you don't want to provide the password in a password prompt, use the following:
printf '%s' 'CorrectHorseBatteryStaple' | hdiutil attach test.sparsebundle -stdinpass -readonly

Note: if you receive the error "resource temporarily unavailable", probably another machine is backing up to the device

And now, you can find your backup disk under /Volumes. Happy restoring!

Probably it would have been quicker to either enable the remote GUI, or to physically travel to the system and login locally, but that would spoil the fun.

Related news


No comments:

Post a Comment

Labels

14.6.2014 draw 297/14 19 Mei 2013 23 Jun 2013 24.04.2013 25 Jun 2013 4 mei 2014 - draw 278/14 6 mei 2014 Adakah anda bersetuju dengan pernyataan tentang zakar ini? BERIKUT MERUPAKAN NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 30 OGOS 2014 draw 143/13 draw 279/14 DRAW ID 098/13. DRAW ID 099/13: NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 4 MEI 2013 DRAW ID 139/13. DRAW ID 141/13. DRAW ID 142/13 DRAW ID 142/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 3 AUGUST 2013 ID CABUTAN 098/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 1 MAY 2013 ID CABUTAN 099/13 / ID CABUTAN 139/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 27 JULY 2013 ID CABUTAN 141/13 / PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D COUNTER ON 31 JULY 2013 Keputusan dan perbandingan antara nombor ramalan dan result Magnum 4D pada 31 Julai 2013 Keputusan Magnum 4D Kerja part time/ sambilan : Peluang tambah pendapatan Magnum 4d result 1 May 2013 Draw 098/13 Magnum draw 094/13 nombor 4d 6.7.2014 308/14 Nombor 4d untuk hari ini : 21/04/2013 nombor magnum 4d draw 107/13 ; Ahad nombor magnum 4d untuk draw 101/13: 7 mei 2013 ( magnum 4d prediction number for draw 101/13 : 7 may 2013 Nombor ramalan 4d : 24.04.2013 Nombor ramalan dan keputusan Magnum 4D draw 119/13 pada 15 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D 4 Ogos 2013 draw 143/13 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D 7 Ogos 2013 draw 144/13 nombor ramalan Magnum 4D dan result pada 4 Ogos 2013 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d draw 112/13 29 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D pada 1 Jun 2013 draw 113/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 14.6.2014 draw 297/14 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D pada 2 Jun 2013 Draw 114/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 23 ogos 2014 draw 329/14 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 26.05.2015 draw 467/15 - special draw Nombor Ramalan Magnum 4D pada 30 April 2014 draw 276/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 30 ogos 2014 draw 333/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 4 mei 2014 - draw 278/14 Nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 5 julai 2014 hari sabtu draw 307/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 7 september 2014 draw 338/14 ( 7.9.2014/338/14) nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada 8 Februari 2014 (8/2/2014) draw 235/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari ahad nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari ahad 6 julai 2014 draw 308/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari rabu 25 september 2013 draw 168/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari rabu 9 julai 2014 draw 309/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu 13.9.2014 draw 340/14 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari sabtu 26 oktober 2013 draw 182/13 nombor ramalan magnum 4d pada hari selasa Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 118/13 pada hari Rabu 12 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 119/13 pada hari Sabtu 16 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 120/13 pada hari Ahad 16 Jun 2013 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 121/13 pada hari Rabu 19 Jun 2013. Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 123/13 pada hari Ahad Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 124/13 pada hari Selasa (special draw) Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk draw 231/14 pada hari Sabtu 1 Februari 2014 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk hari Sabtu 7 Ogos 2013 draw 149/13 Nombor ramalan Magnum 4D untuk hari Selasa 3 September 2013 draw 158/13 | SPECIAL DRAW Nombor ramalan MAGNUM 4D untuk special draw 111/13 28 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan untuk hari Rabu nombor ramalan untuk MAGNUM 4D Nombor ramalan untuk magnum 4d draw 105/13: 15 Mei 2013 Nombor ramalan untuk magnum 4d draw 120/13 dan keputusan/result magnum 4d pada 16 Jun 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 1 MEI 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 27 JULAI 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 3 OGOS 2013 NOMBOR RAMALAN UNTUK MAGNUM 4D PADA 31 JULAI 2013 nombor ramalan untuk magnun 4d pada 3 mei 2014-277/14 nombor untuk magnum 4d draw 095/13 : 27 April 2013 PREDICTION FOR MAGNUM 4D ON 4 MAY 2013 ramalan magnum 4d 9.7.14 309/14 Ramalan pada 12 Jun 2013 dan keputusan Magnum 4D Result 21.4.2013 Cash Sweep Result 21.4.2013 DaMaCai Result 21.4.2013 Magnum Result 21.4.2013 Toto special draw 28 Mei 2013 special draw pada 28 MEI 2013. TERKINI| TERBARU: nombor magnum 4d 7 mei 2013; 101/13 ; special draw Toto draw 3871/13

**Penafian**

Nombor ramalan hanyalah sebagai panduan dan dicadangkan untuk MAGNUM SAHAJA (atau kaunter lain sekiranya sesuai) . Segala pertaruhan adalah atas risiko anda sendiri.