[rdiff-backup-users] Rdiff-backup over FTP

[Chencho]

Hi all.

I use rdiff-backup actually to make incremental backups from office servers
to Internet server over ssh.

All works fine.

Now i want to develop an app (windows platform will be 99% users) to make
this external incremental backups directly from the desktop, without office
server.

I'm not sure how configure ssh in each desktop to not ask about password,
and i think the easiest way to do the backup is over ftp.

Is possible make rdiff-backup work over ftp instead ssh?

Thanks.

[Patrick Nagel]

Hi Chencho,

Post by Chencho
Now i want to develop an app (windows platform will be 99% users) to make
this external incremental backups directly from the desktop, without office
server.
I'm not sure how configure ssh in each desktop to not ask about password,
and i think the easiest way to do the backup is over ftp.
Is possible make rdiff-backup work over ftp instead ssh?

No, it's not possible. What I think would work (never did it though):
Install an SSH server on those Windows servers and then run rdiff-backup on the
backup server. Of course you have to set up key based authentication, which is
straight forward once you understand the basic principles of public key
authentication. Basically you create a key pair (private + public key) on the
backup server and copy the public key to all the SSH-enabled Windows machines
and put it into its allowed keys list (on Unix that works by putting the public
key in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys). You can now connect from the backup server to
all Windows machines without the need of passwords (provided you use a
non-passphrase protected secret key, which is not recommended, but probably ok
in this situation).

Patrick.

[Gregy]

Wouldn't it be easier to just follow the guide located on the wiki?
There is step-by-step how to configure rdiff-backup on windows as a
client to linux server. Or do you want windows to be the server?

Post by Patrick Nagel
Hi Chencho,

Post by Chencho
Now i want to develop an app (windows platform will be 99% users) to make
this external incremental backups directly from the desktop, without office
server.
I'm not sure how configure ssh in each desktop to not ask about password,
and i think the easiest way to do the backup is over ftp.
Is possible make rdiff-backup work over ftp instead ssh?

Install an SSH server on those Windows servers and then run rdiff-backup on
the backup server. Of course you have to set up key based authentication,
which is straight forward once you understand the basic principles of public
key authentication. Basically you create a key pair (private + public key)
on the backup server and copy the public key to all the SSH-enabled Windows
machines and put it into its allowed keys list (on Unix that works by
putting the public key in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys). You can now connect from
the backup server to all Windows machines without the need of passwords
(provided you use a non-passphrase protected secret key, which is not
recommended, but probably ok in this situation).
Patrick.
--
Key ID: 0x86E346D4            http://patrick-nagel.net/key.asc
Fingerprint: 7745 E1BE FA8B FBAD 76AB 2BFC C981 E686 86E3 46D4
_______________________________________________
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki

[Patrick Nagel]

Hi,

Post by Gregy
Wouldn't it be easier to just follow the guide located on the wiki?
There is step-by-step how to configure rdiff-backup on windows as a
client to linux server. Or do you want windows to be the server?

Oh, right, there is a Wiki article:
http://wiki.rdiff-backup.org/wiki/index.php/BackupFromWindowsToLinux

As for the sentence
"As Microsoft Windows does not have a native SSH server built-in, this is
currently not possible without the purchase of a commercial Windows SSH server
package"
in the Wiki - there are free SSH servers for Windows, for example FreeSSHD [1].
So I think my proposed approach should work.

Patrick.

[1]: http://www.freesshd.com/

[Chencho]

Hi all.

I think i dont explain as well in my first post.

Actually i can use rdiff-backup without password from Windows and Linux
without problems.

But it needs some configuration that i would be "harder" for the final user.

Her is my "whise list":

-Server on Centos (linux) over the net.
-A desktop application for the final user:
- Select the folders to make backup on local PC
- Select the current user and password to make backup
- Select when the backup must be execute

If i need to configure rsa-key, add it to the server, etc. it would be not
easy (and if the ip of the client change will be a problem with ssh)

I see some possible options:

- Make a ftp connection and "save it" as local folder. Then use rdiff-backup
as local (folder1 to Z:\, for example). Is possible to make it on Windows,
but not sure how i can do it directly on batch file.

- Use a "expect" for windows (i cant found it) to put the password in ssh; i
dont like it too much, but it could work

[Grzegorz Marszałek]

Hello,

Post by Chencho
-Server on Centos (linux) over the net.
- Select the folders to make backup on local PC
- Select the current user and password to make backup
- Select when the backup must be execute
If i need to configure rsa-key, add it to the server, etc. it would be not
easy (and if the ip of the client change will be a problem with ssh)

This or that way - you need to create account on the server. So isn't
that easier to create account for user x, and set it's shell to rdiff-
backup --server? (i'm not sure if you can add parameters into /etc/
passwd shell field; if you cannot, just create script rdiff-server.sh,
make it default shell and put your rdiff-backup --server there - this
approach has big advantage in your case: you can do a lot more on
server side, like ie.: creating directory for this user backup).

Cheers---
Grzegorz Marszałek
***@post.pl

[Gregy]

Well you could use just one key for everyone...but that would cause
security issues (one person overwriting onother one's backup) or you
could backup the files over samba..just mount smb share as a drive
letter on windows and run "local" backup with rdiff-backup. That
should theoreticaly work.

Post by Grzegorz Marszałek
Hello,

Post by Chencho
-Server on Centos (linux) over the net.
 - Select the folders to make backup on local PC
 - Select the current user and password to make backup
 - Select when the backup must be execute
If i need to configure rsa-key, add it to the server, etc. it would be not
easy (and if the ip of the client change will be a problem with ssh)

This or that way - you need to create account on the server. So isn't that
easier to create account for user x, and set it's shell to rdiff-backup
--server? (i'm not sure if you can add parameters into /etc/passwd shell
field; if you cannot, just create script rdiff-server.sh, make it default
shell and put your rdiff-backup --server there - this approach has big
creating directory for this user backup).
Cheers---
Grzegorz Marszałek
_______________________________________________
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki

[Chencho]

The server is actually my hosting server; i have access to shell as root.

The users accounts will be made by me directly into the server by ssh or
plesk.

Normally, i have this:

I have a domain called remotlybackups.com (not true).

When a user paid, i made a subdomain, for example:

user1.remotlybackups.com

Then i made the user "user1" with password "pw1", and he/she have access to
/var/www/vhosts/remotlybackups.com/subdomains/user1

Now i copy the files into httpsdocs/backup from each user.

Actually is not 100% true, because i put the server in his/her office and
configure ssh and crontab to make it without user activity.

I'm not sure to install samba into my hosting server, but sounds an
alternative.

BTW, if i set the user shell to rdiff-backup --server... i'm not sure how
can i logging to it "without" password prompt form Windows app.

[Gregy]

I use rdiff-backup under one user "backup". I use ssh keys and in
front of the key i put rdiff-backup --server --restrict ..etc That
ensures that if you log-in with specific key you are restricted to
rdiff-backup and one particular directory..sample below. To answer
your question..you can login without password by using ssh key.

command="cd /mnt/raid/Backup/ && rdiff-backup --server --restrict
John/",no-port-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-pty ssh-rsa
AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EDIESBJQAAAIEAnrv+7bf0oiQWvArwhAmA41Z7eHULKF6LzynxQxHFAiwXsFV8B7S4thZaf4IRiXIM/YLssC8KKgyU/4eBazXD2/n+YJl97jk/1jYkiTncCpMxNCqCwimhuFOYd8fY5v/pFkTFg2C2hE+JvP0UJSA3iW5PTKTDGF4c6hZ/tmRNcs=
john

Post by Chencho
The server is actually my hosting server; i have access to shell as root.
The users accounts will be made by me directly into the server by ssh or
plesk.
I have a domain called remotlybackups.com (not true).
user1.remotlybackups.com
Then i made the user "user1" with password "pw1", and he/she have access to
/var/www/vhosts/remotlybackups.com/subdomains/user1
Now i copy the files into httpsdocs/backup from each user.
Actually is not 100% true, because i put the server in his/her office and
configure ssh and crontab to make it without user activity.
I'm not sure to install samba into my hosting server, but sounds an
alternative.
BTW, if i set the user shell to rdiff-backup --server... i'm not sure how
can i logging to it "without" password prompt form Windows app.
--
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Rdiff-backup-over-FTP-tp23408137p23424737.html
Sent from the rdiff-backup-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
_______________________________________________
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
Wiki URL: http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki

[Grzegorz Marszałek]

Post by Chencho
BTW, if i set the user shell to rdiff-backup --server... i'm not sure how
can i logging to it "without" password prompt form Windows app.

I use plink command. There one trick you have to do if you really what
it to be unattended - you need to convert your server ssh-key to putty
format and then import it into HKCU registry key of user, that do
backup. There is python script to do that somewhere on the net. I
currently don't have too much time, but I'll try to put some of my
scripts on the list later on.

Cheers
---
Grzegorz Marszałek
***@post.pl

[Chencho]

Thanks, i'm looking for something like it.

Post by Grzegorz Marszałek

Post by Chencho
BTW, if i set the user shell to rdiff-backup --server... i'm not sure how
can i logging to it "without" password prompt form Windows app.

I use plink command. There one trick you have to do if you really what
it to be unattended - you need to convert your server ssh-key to putty
format and then import it into HKCU registry key of user, that do
backup. There is python script to do that somewhere on the net. I
currently don't have too much time, but I'll try to put some of my
scripts on the list later on.
Cheers
---
Grzegorz Marszałek
_______________________________________________
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/rdiff-backup-users
http://rdiff-backup.solutionsfirst.com.au/index.php/RdiffBackupWiki

[Grzegorz Marszałek]

Post by Gregy
Well you could use just one key for everyone...but that would cause
security issues (one person overwriting onother one's backup) or you
could backup the files over samba..just mount smb share as a drive
letter on windows and run "local" backup with rdiff-backup. That
should theoreticaly work.

I don't recommend that - I've tried this setup and it's awfuly slow
over Fast Ethernet network and two quite powerful machines and I
couldn't finish 300GB backup in 4 days!. The same backup over ssh with
rdiff-backup --server happily finishes in one night (where server is
now old Pentium IV).

Cheers
---
Grzegorz Marszałek
***@post.pl

[Giorgio Moscardi]

Hi,

Post by Patrick Nagel
Hi,

Post by Gregy
Wouldn't it be easier to just follow the guide located on the wiki?
There is step-by-step how to configure rdiff-backup on windows as a
client to linux server. Or do you want windows to be the server?

http://wiki.rdiff-backup.org/wiki/index.php/BackupFromWindowsToLinux

This other article is rather interesting:
http://wiki.rdiff-backup.org/wiki/index.php/UnattendedRdiff

Post by Patrick Nagel
As for the sentence
"As Microsoft Windows does not have a native SSH server built-in, this
is currently not possible without the purchase of a commercial Windows
SSH server package"
in the Wiki - there are free SSH servers for Windows, for example
FreeSSHD [1]. So I think my proposed approach should work.

We have a setup that is very similar to what Gregy wants, and we are
using the approach of the article mentioned before: we have a central
server that pulls data from office servers through ssh at night. For
Windows office servers we are using the stand-alone rdiff-backup binary
together with CopSSH (www.itefix.no/copssh/), and it seems to work
pretty well.

On a side note: as mentioned in another thread, we are using rsync
(still over ssh) for the initial copy, when the data size is huge.

Regards,
Giorgio

[Renato]

Hi everybody,

Currently my rdiff-backup works fine ... But i've just a argument that
dosen't work, I wanted to deleted some increments:

With the commandand: rdiff-backup-v 9 - remove-older-than 2009-01-01 /
backup - force (i tryed with timestamp the same error 1230764400 )

Wed May 7 09:28:47 2009 Using rdiff-backup version 1.2.8
Wed May 7 09:28:47 2009 Fatal Error: Wrong number of arguments given.
See the rdiff-backup manual page for more information.


I've googled ... And I found nothing! Maybe you can help me.
Currently my script is running in production. and I will not see it
happening. No more logging, not very verbose.
I'have attached my strace.

Thank you for your help,


-------------
Kernel: 2.6.26.5-45.fc9.i686
Fedora Core: Fedora release 9 (Sulfur)
Rdiff-backup: Package rdiff-backup-1.2.8-1.fc9.i386
Pyxattr: Package pyxattr-0.4.0-2.fc9.i386
-------------

[Daryl Styrk]

Post by Chencho
Hi all.
I use rdiff-backup actually to make incremental backups from office servers
to Internet server over ssh.
All works fine.
Now i want to develop an app (windows platform will be 99% users) to make
this external incremental backups directly from the desktop, without office
server.
I'm not sure how configure ssh in each desktop to not ask about password,
and i think the easiest way to do the backup is over ftp.
Is possible make rdiff-backup work over ftp instead ssh?
Thanks.
--

http://tinyurl.com/c7oqdd

And I have no idea why you would want your backups going over the net
unencryped.

[Self biasresistor]

Hi there,
I Have a big problem:
I have rdiff-backup 1.3.4 on my debian 4 (etch) and every thing work find
I have tried to install rdiff-backup 1.3.4 on my debian 5 but there was a lot of mistake during the installation,so i download the following .deb:
Python-dev 2.4.4
Librsync 0.9.7
Librsync-dev

And also:
gcc 4.3.2
Libc6-dev_2.7 (which use the libc6.7)

And it works,the install is ok
But when i do
rdiff-backup -V (or other command)
it told me
No such file or directory
Even if i am in the same directory than rdiff-backup


Aparently other people have the same problem with other application and i come from the difference between version of LIBC6 (Wich is a main lib for debian)
The fact is that in debian 4 (etch) use libc6-dev_2.3.6 and libc6_2.3.6
So i think that the rdiff-backup 1.3.4 doesnt not support the new libc6...
No?
Thanks a lot

_________________________________________________________________
Découvrez toutes les possibilités de communication avec vos proches
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/default.aspx