I have a network with 3 pcs running.
I have an older box into which intend sticking a large drive .
The idea is to have a network backup pc so as to have scheduled backups daily from all pcs

I was going to just use windows, but wondered if there was a way to do this wih Linux. I have both ubuntu and pclinux07.

I had intended to have the backup software run on the backup pc thereby avoiding having to setup 3 different machines.

Bear in mind that i know nothing about linux.
I have tried both on my machine using the disc boot option with linuxos and the virtual option with ubuntu.On my windows machine.

So ,the question again, any user friendly free software for linux for backup purposes available and a how to if possible

thanks
Ant

I don't know of any network backup software. Maybe Mike will know of a script to run scheduled backups. ;-)

Ok thanks will have to await his return

Ant

Quote:

Bear in mind that i know nothing about linux.

Well, that may be the show stopper here. You're probably better off using something that you know, because any such software in Linux is going to require some knowledge that you won't just learn from a forum post. Such software isn't going to be all pointy and clicky to configure.

This is probably the best known software for doing what you ask for:
http://www.amanda.org/

Start here:
http://www.amanda.org/docs/index.html

There's also bacula:
http://www.bacula.org/

You might be better off to look into Acronis backup software for Windows. It would be a more user friendly solution, though not free.

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/

I don't know anything about this, if it does everything or not, or any easier to use, but it was in the Mandriva repository. Maybe it's in others as well.

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/info.html

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/faq/BackupPC.html

That sure looks promising and relatively user friendly (web browser interface). I've never heard of it either, but then I'm not really in to backup software (I just do any backups manually)

If it's in the Mandriva repository, it's probably available in PCLinuxOS (I'm guessing) or the Mandriva packages may work (also guessing) provided the prerequisites like perl, associated perl modules and samba are installed.

Quote:

it's probably available in PCLinuxOS (I'm guessing)

Just checked Mike and it's not there at the moment.

I just checked the Ubuntu livecd, it is in that repository. The description says "high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up PCs". PCLOS is mostly average home user software, basically, sort of..., so I suppose an average person doesn't have a home network with a backup server, so I suppose it's not one of their priorities to get it in there. Maybe someone could request it at the forum, if it turns out to be good, they might add it (I don't have an account there at the moment). I backup stuff manually too, but I think it would be handy to have automatic backups. PCL has some backup stuff in the control center, not for this type of setup either, but I've never looked at that either....

The rest of the description from Ubuntu. Probably a duplicate of what can be found on the website.
"BackupPC is disk based and not tape based. This particularity allows
features not found in any other backup solution:
* Clever pooling scheme minimizes disk storage and disk I/O.
Identical files across multiple backups of the same or different PC are
stored only once (using hard links), resulting in substantial savings
in disk storage and disk writes.
* Optional compression provides additional reductions in storage.
CPU impact of compression is low since only new files (those not already
in the pool) need to be compressed.
* 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 very quickly.
* No client-side software is needed. On WinXX the smb protocol is used.
On linux or unix clients, rsync or tar (over ssh/rsh/nfs) can be used
* Flexible restore options. Single files can be downloaded from any backup
directly from the CGI interface. Zip or Tar archives for selected files
or directories can also be downloaded from the CGI interface.
* BackupPC 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.
* and more to discover in the manual..."

...and I just selected it for install in mandriva (but I'm not going to now), it had over 20 additional dependencies that needed to be installed, so installing the rpm in PCLOS might be a little tricky to get all the dependencies installed first (if all packages are available in pclos).

If antcj has Ubuntu, that would be the easiest route at the moment, to try it, it would install everything automatically since it's already available.

I'd guess that there would be a lot of perl modules required. Those can be a royal pain.

Guess I might as well post what there is. Probably not useful, but if someone wants to try it in pclos with the mandy rpm.... Those of you not used to linux, this isn't as bad as it might look, it's all almost automatic if the software is already in the repository....

When you click on it to mark for install, it pops up asking to choose one from 4 different apache-mpm packages (event, itk, etc). Select the first one, another one to choose from 8 (exim, ssmtp, etc.). Select the first one, then....

"To satisfy dependencies, the following package(s) also need to be installed:

- apache-base-2.2.6-8.1mdv2008.0.i586
- apache-conf-2.2.6-1mdv2008.0.i586
- apache-modules-2.2.6-8.1mdv2008.0.i586
- apache-mpm-event-2.2.6-8.1mdv2008.0.i586
- apache-mpm-prefork-2.2.6-8.1mdv2008.0.i586
- exim-4.63-11mdv2008.0.i586
- libapr-util1-1.2.10-1mdv2008.0.i586
- libapr1-1.2.11-1mdv2008.0.i586
- lynx-2.8.6-2mdv2008.0.i586
- perl-Archive-Zip-1.20-1mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-CGI-3.29-1mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-Class-Singleton-1.03-4mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-DateTime-0.40-1mdv2008.0.i586
- perl-DateTime-Format-Mail-0.30-3mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-DateTime-Format-W3CDTF-0.04-1mdv2007.1.noarch
- perl-DateTime-Locale-0.34-2mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-DateTime-TimeZone-0.67-1mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-Net-IMAP-Simple-1.17-1mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-Params-Validate-0.88-2mdv2008.0.i586
- perl-Time-modules-2006.0814-2mdv2008.0.noarch
- perl-XML-RSS-1.31-1mdv2008.0.noarch"

So, 12 perl modules, the apache web server and related packages (apr is apache portable runtime), the exim mailer and the lynx text based web browser. That's a lot of crap to install for backup software, but not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

P.S. It's not bad when a package manager is doing it all for you.

Mike, Al or Mike. I'm just wondering if there's a script that could be set up for Anthony to run "remasterme" to create a daily backup iso file and overwrite the last one each day? Just an idea for a workaround. I personally like using "remasterme".

It's Windows PCs he wants to back up, from a central location. He doesn't want to remaster his PCLinuxOS installation. Totally inappropriate... remasterme is a script that runs various utilities for making a bootable ISO out of your current PCLinuxOS install. I looked it up to see what it was. It's not really backup software, though it can be used for that purpose, to back up your current PCLinuxOS setup. If you have much data (e.g. in home directory), it won't even work for that, because you'd need to be able to burn this ISO to a DVD.

It's just not that simple, that someone could whip up a script like you seem to think. Have you any idea what would be involved? Samba clients, connections, passwords, file copy operations... are we just supposed to pull all this out of our asses for him?

Hi Mike:

I forgot about the "Windows" aspect of this thread. :blusher: :blusher: I didn't plan on you having to inflict pain on/in your ass. :lol: :lol:

Thanks Mike , maybe you are right. if linux had more software available i dont think it would take much for me to make the effort and convert.

Ant