Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Matthew Pounsett]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2021 at 11:49, Joseph Bishay  wrote:
>
> Yes I understand that and agree.  This is a network in a small school and 
> community centre and we are volunteers running the network, and none of us 
> are I.T. experts.  We have a plan during the summer break to try to fix the 
> hostname issue as recommended.  For now, is there a way to have the names of 
> the different clients be something other than IP addresses, perhaps by 
> manually updating one of the fields? If it is the ClientNameAlias do I just 
> put a fake hostname or text in that field or something else?

It sounds to me like your best option for cleanup is to do as Lee
Mikesell pointed out, and can use ClientNameAlias.   This will allow
you to put a host name in the hosts file, so that the names in
backuppc are meaningful, but avoid needing DNS resolution by putting
the IP address in the ClientNameAlias field for the host.

To get there from where you are I think you'll want to do this in two
steps.  Shut down backuppc and then do the following:
1) Rename all of the hosts in backuppc to some meaningful hostname.  I
did this recently when we renamed a few hosts and used this procedure
here, which worked fine:
.
  Disregard the "start up backuppc" step in there for now.

2) Once everything is renamed, go into each host's individual config,
and set ClientNameAlias to the IP address you want to backup that host
from.

Then you can go restart backuppc.


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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[backuppc]

Joseph Bishay wrote at about 11:48:22 -0400 on Wednesday, April 14, 2021:
 > Hello,
 > 
 > On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 10:18 AM  wrote:
 > 
 > > Seems like this is all a network admin problem and little if anything
 > > to do with BackupPC...
 > >
 > 
 > Yes I understand that and agree.  This is a network in a small school and
 > community centre and we are volunteers running the network, and none of us
 > are I.T. experts.  We have a plan during the summer break to try to fix the
 > hostname issue as recommended.  For now, is there a way to have the names
 > of the different clients be something other than IP addresses, perhaps by
 > manually updating one of the fields? If it is the ClientNameAlias do I just
 > put a fake hostname or text in that field or something else?
 > 

Look in config.pl -- it is well-documented...


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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Joseph Bishay]

Hello,

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 10:18 AM  wrote:

> Seems like this is all a network admin problem and little if anything
> to do with BackupPC...
>

Yes I understand that and agree.  This is a network in a small school and
community centre and we are volunteers running the network, and none of us
are I.T. experts.  We have a plan during the summer break to try to fix the
hostname issue as recommended.  For now, is there a way to have the names
of the different clients be something other than IP addresses, perhaps by
manually updating one of the fields? If it is the ClientNameAlias do I just
put a fake hostname or text in that field or something else?

Thank you so much,
Joseph
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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Kenneth Porter]

--On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 12:16 PM -0400 Joseph Bishay 
 wrote:



Our host names are not completely set up correctly.  The servers are most
reliably accessed via their IP addresses rather than their hostnames so
using the hostnames may not always work.  Is that the best option?

Regarding mDNS, we have about 10 linux machines and 2 Windows machines so
the hostname.local option would only work for the minority of clients.


It sounds like you could go old-school (pre-DNS!) and use a shared hosts 
file. Just rsync it from the hosts file master at regular intervals.






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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 9:18 AM  wrote:
>
> Seems like this is all a network admin problem and little if anything
> to do with BackupPC...
>

No, it is kind of the point of ClientNameAlias.  It lets you use
whatever name you'll recognize as the host, but still provide a
resolvable name or IP address that will work on your network to reach
it.  It can also be used if you want to split a single large host into
separate runs with subsets of directories.  You can make it appear
like separate hosts for scheduling while still pointing to the same
actual target.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
 lesmikes...@gmail.com


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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[backuppc]

Joseph Bishay wrote at about 11:16:29 -0400 on Tuesday, April 13, 2021:
 > Hello,
 > 
 > Our host names are not completely set up correctly.  The servers are most
 > reliably accessed via their IP addresses rather than their hostnames so
 > using the hostnames may not always work.  Is that the best option?
 > 
 > Regarding mDNS, we have about 10 linux machines and 2 Windows machines so
 > the hostname.local option would only work for the minority of clients.
 > 
 > If the new backups were renamed to something other than IPs, it would be no
 > problem as after a few weeks the older backups based on the IP names would
 > be deleted automatically and the new ones with the names would remain.
 > 
 > Thank you,
 > Joseph
 > 

Seems like this is all a network admin problem and little if anything
to do with BackupPC...


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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Joseph Bishay]

Hello,

Our host names are not completely set up correctly.  The servers are most
reliably accessed via their IP addresses rather than their hostnames so
using the hostnames may not always work.  Is that the best option?

Regarding mDNS, we have about 10 linux machines and 2 Windows machines so
the hostname.local option would only work for the minority of clients.

If the new backups were renamed to something other than IPs, it would be no
problem as after a few weeks the older backups based on the IP names would
be deleted automatically and the new ones with the names would remain.

Thank you,
Joseph




On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 12:47 AM  wrote:

> Why don't you just use the host names rather than the IP address?
> The hostname should then resolve to the write IP address assuming you
> have that set up write on your system.
>
> Joseph Bishay wrote at about 23:46:07 -0400 on Monday, April 12, 2021:
>  > Hello,
>  >
>  > I hope you are all doing very well today.
>  >
>  > I am using BackupPC for a number of servers and everything is working
>  > well.  The computers are all identified by their IP addresses in the
> host
>  > file and it gets very confusing which computer is which IP address.  Is
>  > there a way to give a nickname or some other identifier for each
> computer?
>  > I saw the field 'ClientNameAlias' but I am unclear if this is the
> solution
>  > or if I use it will the backups stop working?
>  >
>  > Thank you,
>  > Joseph
>  > ___
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>  > List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
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>  > Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/
>
>
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>
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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Les Mikesell]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 8:29 AM Kenneth Porter  wrote:

>
> If the hosts support mDNS (and Windows does), use hostname.local. You might
> need to install the Avahi package on your BackupPC server to use mDNS.

That still doesn't completely solve his problem.  Whether he uses
DNS/mDNS or puts the IP in ClientAliasName he still needs to rename
the existing backups made with the IP as the hostname.  Does that take
more than just changing the host and renaming the directory under pc/
to match?

-- 
Les Mikesell
 lesmikes...@gmail.com


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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Kenneth Porter]

--On Tuesday, April 13, 2021 1:26 AM -0400 backu...@kosowsky.org wrote:


Why don't you just use the host names rather than the IP address?
The hostname should then resolve to the write IP address assuming you
have that set up write on your system.


If the hosts support mDNS (and Windows does), use hostname.local. You might 
need to install the Avahi package on your BackupPC server to use mDNS. This 
eliminates the need to set up a DNS server for your LAN.






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Re: [BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[backuppc]

Why don't you just use the host names rather than the IP address?
The hostname should then resolve to the write IP address assuming you
have that set up write on your system.

Joseph Bishay wrote at about 23:46:07 -0400 on Monday, April 12, 2021:
 > Hello,
 > 
 > I hope you are all doing very well today.
 > 
 > I am using BackupPC for a number of servers and everything is working
 > well.  The computers are all identified by their IP addresses in the host
 > file and it gets very confusing which computer is which IP address.  Is
 > there a way to give a nickname or some other identifier for each computer?
 > I saw the field 'ClientNameAlias' but I am unclear if this is the solution
 > or if I use it will the backups stop working?
 > 
 > Thank you,
 > Joseph
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 > BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net
 > List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
 > Wiki:https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki
 > Project: https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc/


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[BackupPC-users] Renaming clients from IPs?

[Joseph Bishay]

Hello,

I hope you are all doing very well today.

I am using BackupPC for a number of servers and everything is working
well.  The computers are all identified by their IP addresses in the host
file and it gets very confusing which computer is which IP address.  Is
there a way to give a nickname or some other identifier for each computer?
I saw the field 'ClientNameAlias' but I am unclear if this is the solution
or if I use it will the backups stop working?

Thank you,
Joseph
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