I was just watching the latest KH and almost spit my food across the room when Padre said build a...

[G+_Derek J.D.]

I was just watching the latest KH and almost spit my food across the room when Padre said build a Win box to backup a linux box.  Not sure who was looking for info on this but here a few things you can do:

 

Mounting: webdav, google-drive-camlfuse, there are some diff for mega and dropbox (google it)

 

Syncing stuff: use rsync or duplicity

 

with a little script-fu in bash or python you can have you box backing up to the cloud and if there are any issues you can have it send you a push bullet/sms/other notification

 

for timing: use cron to setup the backup for whatever time frames you want

 

 

I'm just writing this off the top of my head, there might actually be some applications out there to do everything for you already.  The *nix world is full of tons of stuff out there.

[G+_Taylor Graham]

I'm sure using windows is simple, but yeah, i was thinking of rsync as well. Works extremely well with glacier/s3. Plus all the linux utilities work flawlessly.. because linux.

[G+_Chris Druif (Automated]

Hmm backing up to the cloud with Pushbullet cross device notification with a failed backup? It sounds interesting but I'm going to get some 4 TB drives for my server (4*4 TB= 12 TB right RAID 5 configuration). So unless I can find a very affordable cloud storage option it is only an interesting idea for me personally.

[G+_Derek J.D.]

Chris Druif? use push bullet as a notification of something went wrong not as a means of backup

[G+_Chris Druif (Automated]

Derek J.D. I know. I might not have made myself clear about what I meant but that's what I meant ?

[G+_Stede Bonnett]

I just replied to the other post about this (and using CrashPlan). Good point about the notifications - by default it emails you weekly your backup statistics, and it will notify you if no connection has been made in a specified number of days.

Also, I bet the hardcore Linux/*BSD guys would remind us about Bacula. Plus there is an excellent service called tarsnap that works on everything but windows (for now).

[G+_Stephen Hart]

If you sync Mac files to a Windows PC, then backup from there, you will lose some metadata. Check that that the backup program will keep metadata (many will) and install their software in the Mac.

[G+_Stede Bonnett]

True Stephen Hart - that's another plus for backup products, they generally package and compress files into some sort of archive block so you don't lose any non-file data and platform specific ACLs, streams, forks, etc. You also generally get versioning support so you can restore on older edit of a file.

 

CrashPlan does this (it's the one I'm most familiar with, so its my example) and it is not just a service for online backup - it can also backup between computers on your account, to friends/family with the software, etc. You can even build your own backup server and stick it somewhere as an off-site solution, all with the free software.

[G+_Jeff Brand]

While it doesn't do real-time syncing per file, duplicity is a great tool that supports many remote protocols. Also consider using duplicity-backup.sh (https://github.com/zertrin/duplicity-backup) to simplify some of the process. It's a wrapper script that works with duplicity.

[G+_Runar Bell]

I just want to chime in here. The solutions I currently use for Linux - and that all works excellently - are:

 

* CrashPlan - always on, I've used it on 4 linux machines (three workstations, one laptop) for three years now (and a couple of windows laptops) and NEVER experienced anything even remotely looking like trouble. (and I've retrieved data multiple times, also via my phone while out-and-about). I currently have 1TB of data stored there.

 

* Dropbox - Excellent client - never caused any problems - just sits there quietly and syncing things between my assorted machines

 

* MEGASync - also excellent client and excellent service. You get 50GB for free. The paid plans are also good. Only running this service on my linux laptop for now. Extremely easy install - just works!

 

 

So - needless to say - Padre obviously does not know Linux - and he said so himself - and presented the only solution that he would set up himself. Even though it was terrible advice! :)