Setting up your Mac to sync to FreeNAS via Unison

Enable the SSH service on FreeNAS

Open FreeNAS WebUI
Click the Services tab, then select SSH
Check the Enable box

Create and grant a user SSH access

Click the Access tab, then select Users and Groups
If you need to create a new user, click the plus button

Type the username in the name box
Specify the password
In the Shell drop-down box select the shell program you wish to use for the account. If unsure, select bash
Click Add

If you wish to give the default guest account access, click the wrench icon (edit) for the guest account, or if you've already created a user account edit that one

In the Shell drop-down box select the shell program you wish to use. If unsure, select bash

Create a Public/Private Key for automatic SSH authentication

Open up terminal
Run ssh-keygen

This generates a public and private key, id_rsa.pub and id_rsa respectively, in the .ssh folder in your home directory

Create the .ssh folder in the user's home diretory, i.e. homeuser's home directory is /mnt/raid_mnt/home_share

ssh homeuser@freenas.borns.local
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh

Upload the public key to the .ssh folder

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa homeuser@freenas.borns.local:~/.ssh/authorized_keys
ssh homeuser@freenas.borns.local
cd .ssh
chmod 600 authorized_keys

Assign the appropriate permissions for the FreeNAS mount point, which should be dedicated solely to one user

Click the Disks tab, then select Mount Points
Click the Edit icon for the mount point containing the sync directory
Change the User drop-down box to the user we've setup for sharing and shell access

The Group drop-down box can be changed if you've setup a custom group as well

Uncheck the Write checkboxes for the Other and Group sections for permissionsClick the Save button, then the Apply Changes button

Enable and configure the Unison Service

Click the Services tab, then select Unison
Check the Enable box
Click the ... button (browse) for the Working directory field
Browse the folders of the FreeNAS box and select the root folder you wish to keep synchronized
Click the Save and Restart button

NOTE:

The Unison working directory is stored in an environment variable in the /etc/login.conf file. There's a bug with making changes to the working directory: the variable is only appended with changes and not updated properly.
To edit this file, you need to be root and you have to configure root to be able to log in via SSH
Locate the UNISON= and delete the path(s) after it until you get to the :\ which signifies the end of the file. After this go back to the WebUI and do a quick "Save and Restart" under Unison and the value you have in the text box will be put back in.

Download and Configure Unison for the Mac

Download and Install Unison

Download the Unison UI from http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/index.html

The latest version as of this document is 2.27.72 (http://alan.petitepomme.net/unison/assets/Unison-2.27.72.dmg)

Mount the dmg file and drag the Unison application over to the Applications folder (or wherever you feel is appropriate)Install command line utility for cron jobs

Open the Unison application

With Unison selected, up in the menu bar, click Unison then Install command-line tool
The program copies the program without granting access outside of the root account. We need to grant ourselves access
Open Terminal
Navigate to the install directory: cd /usr/bin
Change permission mask: sudo chmod 755 unison

Create Unison Profile

Click the Add button to create a new profile
Give the profile a descriptive name, preferably the purpose of the profile, in the Profile name text box

The First Root text box will be the local path to the directory you would like synced

NOTE: Include trailing slash?

The Second Root is for the destination synch
Make sure the Remote option is selected
Type the username for the account given shell access to earlier in the User text box
Give the IP/DNS address to the remote location in the Host text box
Give the path to the folder you wish to syncrhonize

NOTE:

There is no way to delete or edit profiles with the user interface. However, they are plain text files stored in the following location:~/Library/Application Support/Unison

You can open the files within TextEdit (or other appropriate text editing software) and make any changes. You can delete the profiles and start over as well.
This folder also contains the archive file that Unison uses to keep track of changes.

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