Configuration on OS X

[Jeffrey Goldberg <jeffrey@goldmark.org>]

Tarsnap (tarsnap-autoconf-1.0.33) builds nicely on OS X (10.8.2), but I'm wondering if anyone has advice about things like where to put the tarsnap key file and set up scripts that will survive OS X updates.

I'm sure I can find a good approach, but I was wondering whether others have already done that. So a couple of questions come to mind:

1. Where should tarsanp.key go on OS X?

OS X doesn't normally have a root user. (Well, UID 0 exists, but root can't log in and doesn't have a home directory.)

2. launchd or cron on OS X?

Apple is really trying to wean people off of cron. They keep threatening to turn of crond by default. So has anyone created a launchd plist for automatic backups?

3. How HFS+ (OS X default filesystem) aware is tarsnap?

I don't foresee that I'll be using it where I need to worry about extended attributes, (deprecated) resource forks, and other things that may be HFS+ specific, but if I can get an idea of limitations up front, that might help me avoid surprises later.

As I said, I can dig into each of these questions myself. I'm only asking here because others may have already done that digging.

Cheers,

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                        http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/