Setting up Ubuntu as a Time Machine destination

Each time I set up my linux box (usually Debian based but this will work for most others I suspect) as a Time Machine destination, I have to search for the correct way to set up Samba and many of the hits are the older way to do it, using avahi and netatalk, before Samba support for Apple was implemented. It's now very simple. This was on Ubuntu 20.04 and Samba version 4.13.

  sudo apt install samba

Add a new Samba user which will also ask for a password to be set, it should be an existing user on the system.

 sudo smbpasswd -a $USER

Then edit /etc/samba/smb/conf and add the following to the [global] and [share] sections.

[global]
   min protocol = SMB2
   ea support = yes
   vfs objects = fruit streams_xattr
   fruit:metadata = stream
   fruit:model = MacSamba
   fruit:posix_rename = yes
   fruit:veto_appledouble = no
   fruit:posix_rename = yes 
   fruit:zero_file_id = yes
   fruit:wipe_intentionally_left_blank_rfork = yes
   fruit:delete_empty_adfiles = yes

[TimeMachine]
    comment = TimeMachine
    path = /home/stuart/timemachine
    valid users = stuart
    browseable = yes
    writeable = yes
    create mask = 0600
    directory mask = 0700
    spotlight = yes
    vfs objects = catia fruit streams_xattr
    fruit:aapl = yes
    fruit:time machine = yes

Restart Samba.

  sudo systemctl restart smbd.service

Then link Time Machine to the new share from Time Machine Preferences using the user and password defined earlier and everything should work as expected.