Backing up several Windows machines to a Linux server

[Keith Lofstrom]

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 at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs