Topic: Online Backup for Clients

[David Hardy]

I 've been looking for something like Veritas Netbackup Pro that is GPL and would work with both Linux and WinXX clients.

So far I've found a few projects on Sourceforge which look interesting:

** http://sourceforge.net/projects/backup/ **

Handles automatic backup of files by compressing them and sending to some specified server, which can be anywhere on LAN or internet.A GUI is provided for easy recovery of files from remote server.
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** http://sourceforge.net/projects/backuppc/ **

BackupPC is a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up Linux, WinXX PCs, and laptops to a server's disk. Features include clever pooling of identical files, no client-side software, and a powerful Apache/CGI user interface.
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** http://sourceforge.net/projects/bobs/ **

Browseable Online Backup System (BOBS) is a complete online backup system. Uses large disks for storing backups and lets users browse the files using a webbrowser. Handles some special files like AppleDouble and icon files.
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Has anybody had a go with any of these or can anyone recommend anything else?

I want to backup my niece's laptop, over the internet, from her digs at university directly to our home server. Ideally she should be able to retrieve/restore her files directly. If it works easily I would then want to extend it to include her housemates computers as well.

Any suggestions/advice gratefully received!

David.

[guestHH]

how about rsync to an browseable and password protected ibay?

[David Hardy]

Thanks RequestedDeletion!

I've found  sync2nas here http://sync2nas.sourceforge.net/ and the client end looks dead easy to use. (ideal for semi-computer literate niece!)

I've had a stab at configuring the rsync daemon using the limited instructions on this page but have not made it work properly yet.

Am I being really dim or is there an extra thing I have to do to get rsync running as a daemon on my SME 5.6 box?

When I type:

chkconfig --list rsync

I get:

rsync           off

Any further advice gratefully received ..... I'll stick it all in a how-to and post it somewhere for all to see.

Thanks,

David.

[Michiel]

Hi David,

Did you get sync2nas with rsync running?

Michiel

[Michiel]

In case anyone stumbles on this thread: I've wasted a considerable amount of time only to find out that Sync2Nas doesn't work on WinXP.

Sync2Nas is basically just a front-end for rsync for windows. It condfigures the scheduler to run rsync at regular intervals. Unfortunately the arguments for rsync are slightly different under Win9x and WinXP, and Sync2Nas only knows the 'Win9x' way.

Moreover, rsync doesn't seem to read the %RSYNC_PASSWORD% environment variable under WinXP, which means you have to enter the password manually each time you run it. Not very helpfull if you want to run it as a batch process :-/

I'd love to be proved wrong.

Michiel

[DG]

Have you made sure the variable is being set a global machine variable, and not just a user environment variable?  If it is still not reading it, it might be possible to run rsync from a batch file that sets the variable every time it runs, then you could create the scheduler job manually to run the bat file.