Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote: > > I am faced with what *must* be a very common task: to make backups of > user files on several Windows machines to the hard disk of a Linux > server. So far I've only been responsible for backing up the servers, > and rsync/rsnapshot plus mondo do a beautiful job of that. ... >2. Given that the clients are Windows and I need to automate backups > (else they'll never get done), I don't see how I can use rsync and/or > similar tools since they don't run on that OS. It seems to me that I > need some sort of a client app on Windows that will push the backups to > the server. Happy to be corrected if wrong, of course. I am maintaining dirvish ( www.dirvish.org ), one of many available packages that make a wrapper around rsync for pulling files from clients to a backup server. Dirvish lives entirely on the backup server, and requires properly configured rsync and ssh on the clients, capable of responding to backup server requests. While some folks in the dirvish development group insist ( perhaps correctly) that the windoze world is digusting and evil and to be avoided at all costs, I figure there are a lot of fellows like you that want to use F/OSS as much as possible, but are faced with a windoze reality set by others. So my sympathies are with you, and if all those windoze machines get all their data properly saved and backed up, then all have a series of unfortunate accidents, I will be a character witness at your trial ... :-) That said, the problem is tough. The only safe way to run backups is server-pull; the backup server should only make outbound TCP/IP connections. That said, most windoze machines are poor at offering inbound TCP/IP services. Typically, only the virus writers seem to know how to do this competently. Ghost requires stopping the OS so that all the files can be put back; if you are going to do that, you might as well boot into Linux (perhaps with PXE network boot or with USBdrive or CDdrive ) and copy the partition with "dd". In either case, you get an entire partition as as a big indigestable wad, unsuitable for all the wonderful hardlinking and compression features of the best disk-to-disk schemes. Even if you can pick apart the files in the wad, if it is NTFS you can't fix them and put them back, and backups without easy restore is just a superstitious waste of time. I am working with a couple of fellows who recently joined the dirvish list who are interested in making windoze backups happen. We will probably restrict the solution, if any, to WinNT/2K/XP systems, since Win95/98 TCP/IP stacks are even more lame than average for M$. We need to be able to run rsync on the windows clients, and access them from the server. As mentioned by others, there are versions of rsync that run under windoze; I don't know how well they work as rsync --daemon ( "rsyncd" ) servers, but I hope to be finding out over the next few weeks. Send me email, or join the dirvish mailing list, and we can work out some of those issues. So get in touch, and let's see what we can figure out. If nothing else, we can write a "DATFAQ" (Disappointing Answers To Frequently Asked Questions) together. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom keithl@xxxxxxxxxx Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
