Set up BackupPC in a Mixed-OS Environment
BackupPC Setup Manual
July 2007 This how-to article is based on my experience setting up and maintaining a regular Ubuntu 7.04 install running as the backup server at UCSD. The clients varied in their OS's; Mac OS X, Windows XP, Linux (Debian and Ubuntu). Except for the install commands (eg apt-get install), this instruction should work with other Linux distros.Client Set Up
Please click the OS that you use to see the specific instructions.- Linux
- Windows XP without Cygwin
- Windows XP with Cygwin
- Mac OS X (confirmed with 10.4)
- Windows Vista - not yet tested
Server Set Up
This manual is written for the administrator who will be setting up the backup server. You must have a root privilege. The server computer will be the computer that will do the backup and keep the backed up data.References
I got a lot of help from the following web sites.- sourceforge.net - Official BackupPC homepage
- nerdylorrin.net - Great how-to for WinXP set up with rsyncd
- justinsomnia.org - Unique how-to for WinXP using Cygwin/rsync
- lifehacker.com - I found the info here to turn on SSH server on Mac OS X
Disclaimer
The author of this manual, Tak Suyama, is not responsible for any damage that may result from following this manual. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! If you find this manual useful, please consider supporting this website. Thank you!Privacy Considerations
While each personal computer's data will be kept private by the unique user name and password, all of the computers can be accessed by the administrator. It is never the administrator's intention to access anybody's personal data. However, you may take into account the fact that it is potentially accessible when you decide what data to be backed up on the backup server. Moreover, it is important to have an administrator that you can trust as well.
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October 24th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
You got me up & running! Thanks.
I currently have a windows XP desktop, a ubuntu 7.10 desktop and a dual boot laptop being backed up to my file/print/scanner server. The backup medium is 2 320GB SATA drives under ubuntu 7.10 raid1.
My question is how to set up the backuppc server to backup its boot drive which isn’t the raid drives, but a EIDE drive?
Thanks again,
Doug
October 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Greetings! Thanks for your hard work!
Months ago, I reported a bug against the Ubuntu / Debian package, saying the included docs weren’t custom to the Ubuntu package:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/backuppc/+bug/17316
Your docs address the issue nicely! Have you been in touch with the authors or packagers to improve it?
October 27th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Hi Doug,
Sorry for not responding sooner. We took precaution to evacuate from San Diego this week (the San Diego wildfire).
I have not really worked with RAID systems although I wish I had. At work, we are now using 2 x 500GB drives and the scheme for dividing the backed up data is pretty messed up
I really don’t know anything about EIDE drives. If it’s like any other drives (IDE, SATA), you can just mount it as /var or /var/lib/backuppc.
That’s essentially what I did for the 2 drives mentioned above.
Did this help?
October 27th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Hi Tommy,
Thanks for your kind words. Is the bug you filed referring to the location of the configuration file?
I cannot remember exactly how I found the file, but even if you can’t find the config file, with the latest version of backuppc, you can change the content of the configuration file from the web-based interface.
I have not contacted the authors of the program. I’m usually shy about these things
Since you already did a nice job pointing to the problem and the solution in the launchpad, I think that’s probably enough. Thank you!
tak
November 1st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
There has been a minor revision of this article. Namely, it is the part where you make sure that the id_rsa file is not accessible by anybody else.
It used to say:
chown linus:linus id_rsa
chmod 700 id_rsa
But, it should be:
chown linus:linus id_rsa
chmod 600 id_rsa
It won’t make much of a difference, but I’m sorry for the typo.
Tak
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 am
[…] Backuppc e’ un ottimo software che permette di fare backup incrementali da qualsiasi apparecchio, server linux, computer con windows ocon Mac OSX .Vi consiglio un ottima guida al riguardo per la configurazione.Howto per Backuppc […]
December 16th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Thanks for this tutorial, is very useful, i need to know what happend if i have a laptop conected in a diferent network, is posible to realize the backup?, or i have in a diferent location my server from the PCs i need to back up, diferent net, i hope this is clear, thanks again, plutarcomp
December 17th, 2008 at 10:09 am
As long as you have a static IP address assigned to the laptop and there is no SSH restrictions (eg, college campus may have SSH restrictions against non-campus computers), you should be ok.
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