I have a couple of old NAS enclosures. They're Netgear ReadyNAS Duo
units, the old ones that use a SPARC processor implemented in an FPGA.
Unfortunately they're way out of support. Netgear replaced their 2-bay
NAS range with ARM-based units years ago, and now seem to be getting out
of the NAS business altogether. Their software is based on a Linux distribution that no longer supports SPARC and which supports only V1 of
the SMB protocol, which is insecure and has been dropped by just about anything you might want to run. This limits the usefulness of the NASes
even though they still work with NFS, FTP, and rsync.
Even the web-based management interface is a difficulty as the unit's self-signed SSL certificate uses old algorithms and short keys that
don't meet the security requirements of modern browsers.
I'm looking to replace them.
One thing I really liked about these units was that they were capable of backing up a remote PC over a network share. So long as the PC was
switched on (maybe WOL was supported, I don't recall) the NAS would back
up the shares at predetermines times without any software (beyond the OS
and samba) running on the PC itself. This meant that the NAS could
perform the backup without exposing any of its own drives as shares,
which in turn meant that it wouldn't be visible to malware (especially ransomware) and wouldn't be infected/encrypted.
Obviously one needs to back the NAS up as well, it's not a backup
strategy on its own.
I've been reading about NAS drives that are available today - Synology
and QNAP, mostly - and I can't tell from the blurb or the reviews
whether the same sort of backup facility that I used to like so much in
the Netgear devices is available on any of them. Can anyone here who has experience of these devices help me to understand?
The PC I'm most worried about backing up is the Windows box used by
SWMBO for "work", but I'd use it for my Linux boxes as well.
The alternative would be to set up a small low-power PC (preferably
using less juice than my Microserver) and run some backup solution on
that ... but I'm struggling to find software I don't have to write
myself (too many rabbit holes) that will do the job. Any recommendations?
On 28/05/2024 15:22, Daniel James wrote:
The alternative would be to set up a small low-power PC (preferably
using less juice than my Microserver) and run some backup solution on
that ... but I'm struggling to find software I don't have to write
myself (too many rabbit holes) that will do the job. Any recommendations?
crontabs
Abandoned Trolley <fred@fred-smith.co.uk> wrote:
On 28/05/2024 15:22, Daniel James wrote:
crontabs
The alternative would be to set up a small low-power PC (preferably
using less juice than my Microserver) and run some backup solution on
that ... but I'm struggling to find software I don't have to write
myself (too many rabbit holes) that will do the job. Any recommendations? >>
Depends what you mean by 'software', but there's tools like rsync,
rsnapshot, syncoid plus a script/config file to run it (from crontab or otherwise)
Or do you mean a clicky GUI? Syncthing is such a tool that springs to mind.
Depends what you mean by 'software', but there's tools like rsync,
rsnapshot, syncoid plus a script/config file to run it (from crontab or otherwise)
Or do you mean a clicky GUI?
Once you have a box that's Just Another Server with Just A Bunch Of
Files, you aren't tramlined into whatever software a NAS vendor
decides to offer you, you can install whatever. Then it's a case of
finding the 'whatever' that meets the model of how you want it to
work.
On 28/05/2024 16:09, Theo wrote:
Depends what you mean by 'software', but there's tools like rsync, rsnapshot, syncoid plus a script/config file to run it (from crontab or otherwise)
Yes, I could just run rsync on the NAS/whatever to copy from the shared drive. I currently back up Linux boxes using rsync over ssh, and I'd
been thinking I couldn't run rsync from Windows because Windows doesn't
have an rsync client (or does it, these days?) but as the drive to be
backed up will be shared I can use rsync directly from the NAS ...
though it will be a bit less efficient.
Is that as good as it gets?
Or do you mean a clicky GUI?
I'm not a big fan of unnecessary GUI front ends ... but sometimes a GUI
can help. In this case a GUI is certainly not a "must have", but I can
see that one might be nice e.g. for selecting what is to be backed up
and what is not.
I'm trying to find out what (methods and/or tools) is available that may
have escaped my Google-Fu.
TBH Googling for this is difficult. Most things that turn up are backup
tools that run ON the machine being backed up, which is not what I want,
and as soon as I include NAS or server in the search I only get results
that talk about backing up one server to another, not backing up a PC to
a NAS/server FROM that NAS/server.
There'shttps://itefix.net/cwrsync
(uses cygwin)
or there's a native version you can run in a git-bash environment: https://prasaz.medium.com/add-rsync-to-windows-git-bash-f42736bae1b3
or you can always run Linux rsync via WSL, which can see your Windows files.
Windows supports an SSH server natively these days, or you can SSH into a
WSL environment.
Is that as good as it gets?
What do you want it to do? Just copy files, or take some kind of
incremental backup (Tuesday's version of the files, Wednesday's version, January's version, etc)? rsync does the former, rsnapshot the latter.
It sounds like you want a daemon of some kind: running on the PC and listening for backup requests.
Then the server can initiate a 'pull', rather than the PC running a
'push'.
ssh/scp/sftp is the obvious tool for that, or something that runs
over ssh (like rsync/rsnapshot)
Or you export the PC's files as a network share and then copy them from there. In which case it's a 'local' copy as far as the NAS is concerned.
The alternative would be to set up a small low-power PC (preferably
using less juice than my Microserver) and run some backup solution on
that ... but I'm struggling to find software I don't have to write
myself (too many rabbit holes) that will do the job. Any recommendations?
The PC I'm most worried about backing up is the Windows box used by
SWMBO for "work", but I'd use it for my Linux boxes as well.
The alternative would be to set up a small low-power PC (preferably
using less juice than my Microserver) and run some backup solution on
that ... but I'm struggling to find software I don't have to write
myself (too many rabbit holes) that will do the job. Any recommendations?
urbackup
https://www.urbackup.org/
Unfortunately you need a bit of in-depth knowledge where your data lies,
and the configuration is not that friendly. So it's a rabbit hole as
well. Perhaps, it's a bit more network enterprise than home - but it
does me and has saved me bacon when I've accidentally deleted things.
urbackup
https://www.urbackup.org/
Adrian Caspersz <email@here.invalid> wrote:
urbackup
https://www.urbackup.org/
Unfortunately you need a bit of in-depth knowledge where your data lies,
and the configuration is not that friendly. So it's a rabbit hole as
well. Perhaps, it's a bit more network enterprise than home - but it
does me and has saved me bacon when I've accidentally deleted things.
Interesting, I'd not heard of it. I see 'unreliable' comes up as a description, especially on wifi or routed networks: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/17o63zy/i_love_the_idea_behind_urbackup_but_its_executed/
Is that the sort of thing that Just Needs Configuring Correctly, ie a lack
of sensible out of the box config,
machines not on the same hardwired ethernet?
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