Craig... Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out, but it sounds like you've basically built a web interface to what we are doing already. However, it does sound more automatic than what we are doing so i tmight have some definite advantages.
Right now, I launch a master cron job calls a several backup scripts (one per machine) which smbmounts the share to be backed up, zips it into the directory and then unmounts the remote. Then it mails me a report as to what was backed up. Quite effective really... Not very secure, but effective and it's a very small shell script. So, I'll ask again... I have seen several times it written that you can use ssh and AMANDA to dump SAMBA shares securely to a server. Has anyone actually done this or can they come up with a pointer to a web page on how to do it? Thanks for the reply though! Daryl. -----Message d'origine----- De : [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]De la part de Craig Barratt Envoy� : mardi 2 octobre 2001 18:55 � : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Objet : Re: Backing up Windows clients to another machine securely > Currently, we back up a bunch of windows machines in the office to a Linux > backup server via shell scripts which smbmounts the windows machines, zips > the directories and files and then deposits it on our backup server. This is > robust, works very well, not too secure, sucks up a little too much network > bandwidth, but is very effective and simple to maintain. > > However, we are migrating over to new offices and I would like to come up > with a better way to do this. Amanda seems to have a lot going for it. You could checkout BackupPC that I just released on sourceforge.net. It does backup-to-disk for WinXX and linux clients using Samba. See: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net It doesn't have all the features you ask for, but it probably will have some of them in the next few months. Instead of compression, it pools identical files, so that multiple copies of the same file are stored only once. This provides about a 3-4x savings in disk usage. A future version will support compression, which will provide additional savings, and I'll probably support binary diffs using xdelta or similar so that only differences in files need to be stored. There is a cgi script that allows users to restore their own files, start/stop backups etc. BackupPC doesn't support encryption since that would break the ability to pool identical files between different machines. But that could be an option... At our installation we use it to backup around 100 laptops to disk. I've attached the feature list. BackupPC makes a nice complement to Amanda. While Amanda can also backup WinXX machines to tape using samba, BackupPC is particularly well suited to environments where machines (eg: laptops) are only intermittently connected to the network and have dynamic IP addresses. Craig BackupPC features: - A clever pooling scheme minimizes disk storage. Identical files across multiple backups of the same or different PCs are stored only once resulting in substantial savings in disk storage. - One example of disk use: 65 latops with average 3.2GB each. Storing one full backup and two incremental backups per laptop is around 240GB of raw data. But pooling of identical files requires only 87GB. - No client-side software is needed on WinXX machines. The standard smb protocol is used to extract backup data. On linux clients, the industry-standard Samba package is used to provide smb shares that are used for backup. - A powerful http/cgi user interface allows administrators to view log files, configuration, current status and allows users to initiate and cancel backups and browse and restore files from backups. - Supports mobile environments where laptops are only intermittently connected to the network and have dynamic IP addresses (DHCP). - Flexible configuration parameters allow multiple backups to be performed in parallel, specification of which shares to backup, which directories to backup or not backup, various schedules for full and incremental backups, schedules for email reminders to users and so on. Configuration parameters can be set system-wide or also on a per-PC basis. - Users are sent periodic email reminders if their PC has not recently been backed up. Email content, timing and policies are configurable. - Tested on Linux and Solaris hosts, and Linux, Win95, Win98 and Win2000 clients. - Detailed documentation. - Open Source hosted by SourceForge and freely available under GPL.
