Access external hard drive attached to airport from terminal

[mr sbe]

I just started using the terminal and would like to use the rsync command but I am having troubling accessing the destination directory - perhaps someone here could assist me?

The destination directory is on an external hard drive attached to an airport that must be logged into. I have tried using cd /Volume/External Drive to access it but when I do this I just get a > output...not sure what that is...

The drive appears in the Finder under the Share section.

Do I need to mount the external hard drive into a blank directory - say on my desktop - first? If so, how would I do that?

Any help would be much appreciated...

 

[mr sbe]

Solution to my own question

In case anyone ever comes across this thread I found the solution.

The airport has a unique IP address. So instead of using the mount command for a far off server just use the mount command directed toward the IP address of the airport.

First, create a directory using the command mkdir dirname

Second, use the command mount -t hfs //airport IP address/Volume dirname

You will be prompted to supply the password for the airport - after that the external hard drive volume attached to the airport will be mounted in dirname.

Third, use the rsync command to back up your files to the external hard drive attached to the airport that is now mounted on your machine.

Then, when you are done use the command umount dirname and the external hard drive attached to the airport is now "ejected".

Also, I pieced much of this information together using the O'Reilly book Macintosh Terminal Pocket Guide - pretty sweet for beginners like myself...