Hi Dan,

I was kinda assuming that each admin would, after testing to see if s/he 
wanted to use it, write scripts that automate the heavy lifting. As a lazy 
sysadmin, if I have to do any task more than twice, I'll probably script 
it!

For instance, I have:
  install.bat (creates folders, sets permissions, copies all the files onto 
the laptop, runs the gtk+ installer in silent mode, and finally launches 
puttygen)
  fixup-user.sh (creates the laptop-user's home dir on linux, creates all 
the directories and sets the permissions correctly), etc.

So to set this up for a new laptop I have to:
1. create the user in my infrastructure (everyone's will be different 
depending on if you use /etc/passwd, ldap, etc)
2. run setup-user.sh on the BackupPC server
3. double-click install.bat on the Windows laptop
4. scp the ssh key to the BackupPC server
5. add the host to BackupPC
6. run an initial backup
7. educate the user

I didn't include those scripts because they're VERY specific to my 
infrastructure. I was kinda assuming that any admin capable of setting up 
BackupPC would be capable of writing these scripts. If I'm wrong, I can 
post mine.... but again, they make assumptions based on my infrastructure 
and I was trying to avoid the "here's one more script to do a find/replace 
in".

PS. You're on your own for step 7. :-)

Cheers, Stephen
--
Stephen Joyce
Systems Administrator                                            P A N I C
Physics & Astronomy Department                         Physics & Astronomy
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill         Network Infrastructure
voice: (919) 962-7214                                        and Computing
fax: (919) 962-0480                               http://www.panic.unc.edu

  Some people make the world turn and others just watch it spin.
    -- Jimmy Buffet

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007, dan wrote:

> this link has been added to the Tips and tricks portion of the wiki.
>
> but
>
> does anyone else see this as a complicated workaround?  i read through the
> windowsxp setup and it is not trivial.  what i mean is, repeating that
> process on any number of laptops would be a hassle.
>
> i wonder if it might be more efficient to just have an ssh script on the
> windows machine that would login and launch a backup which the windows
> machine gets on the network??  i think it may be a simpler solution.
>
> any thoughts?
>
> On 10/13/07, Stephen Joyce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> Full details with apps and scripts at
>> http://www.physics.unc.edu/~stephen/on-demand-backuppc/
>>
>> I'll add this to the wiki when I have time.
>>
>> Cheers, Stephen
>> --
>> Stephen Joyce
>> Systems Administrator                                            P A N I C
>> Physics & Astronomy Department                         Physics & Astronomy
>> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill         Network Infrastructure
>> voice: (919) 962-7214                                        and Computing
>> fax: (919) 962-0480                               http://www.panic.unc.edu
>>
>>   If it wasn't backed up, then it wasn't important.
>>
>> On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Stephen Joyce wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I needed a way for to conveniently backup my users' laptops. Some of
>> these
>>> are rarely, if ever, on our LAN. So, I implemented an on-demand backup
>>> solution using Unison (rsync like directory sync util with gui) and
>>> BackupPC.
>>>
>>>    laptop  ---------> "cache" disk  -------------> "archive" disk
>>>                ^                         ^
>>>                |                         |
>>>           Unison on-                  BackupPC checks
>>>           demand over                 for new files in
>>>           SSH tunnel                  cache hourly
>>>
>>> When a user initiates an on-demand backup via unison, the connection is
>>> over SSH (fewer potential firewall issues). After Unison finishes, a
>> flag
>>> is set on the cache disk to indicate to BackupPC that fresh files exist.
>>> BackupPC checks for this "freshness flag" instead of performing a ping
>> of
>>> the client. If new/fresh files exist on the cache, then an rsync based
>>> backup is performed (of the host's directory of the cache disk) and the
>>> flag removed. (There's a lot more logic and checks to prevent
>> simultaneous
>>> operations that I'm omitting here.)
>>>
>>> This setup allows mobile users to backup and restore files from the most
>>> recent backup (the one on the cache disk) using the Unison gui. If an
>> older
>>> version of a file is needed, the user can log into the BackupPC server's
>>> CGI and retrieve it from a prior backup.
>>>
>>> This provides a near-optimal solution, I think, for laptop backups. The
>>> very first backup of a laptop may take a few minutes if there is a lot
>> of
>>> data (so should occur on the local LAN if possible), but future backups
>> for
>>> most users take under 5 minutes!
>>>
>>> If anyone is interested in my exact setup (pre and post dump scripts,
>>> backuppc config, client backup script, etc) please let me know. If
>> there's
>>> sufficient interest I'll clean them up a bit, removing the site-specific
>>> bits, and post them to the web.
>>>
>>> Cheers, Stephen
>>> --
>>> Stephen Joyce
>>> Systems Administrator                                            P A N I
>> C
>>> Physics & Astronomy Department                         Physics &
>> Astronomy
>>> University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill         Network
>> Infrastructure
>>> voice: (919) 962-7214                                        and
>> Computing
>>> fax: (919) 962-0480
>> http://www.panic.unc.edu
>>>
>>>  Don't look back. The lemmings are gaining on you.
>>>
>>>
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>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>
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>
>
> -- 
>
>

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