Breaking through the backup barrier
Web Interface
After the server is set up, you'll want to wander around the user interface a bit. On most installations, the URL should be: http://yourbackuppcserver/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin. This will bring you to the Server Status page (Figure 2). If you are one of the administrative users, you will see all of the currently running backups and any failures that need attention. Most of these failures will be caused by users stopping the backup by shutting off their machines. Also, you can see statistics about the server.
One of the nice things about the interface is that virtually all of the references to backups or hosts are clickable and will carry you either to the status page or the browse page for the backup. You'll also see a link to the documentation, which is served up locally.
On the left-hand side, you will notice all of the navigation links for the user interface. The drop-down menu at the top presents a list of hosts, and the search box below lets you search for hosts by name.
After you select one of the hosts, it will permit you to go to its status page, which shows you a list of all of the backups that have completed along with statistics about each one, such as size and when the machine was backed up (see Figure 3). On the status page for each machine, you can also start and stop backups and dequeue a machine for a given number of hours. The end user assigned to the machine in the hosts file is also able to start, stop, and dequeue backups.
Clicking on the list of backups presented on each host's page will take you to the restore interface. On the Backup Browse page, you'll find a navigation tree along the left side for the filesystem and a list of files to the right. Within this interface, you can click on a single file and download the file directly in your browser, or you can select multiple files by marking the checkbox and then clicking Download selected files.
On the next page, you can specify the files to be compressed or whether you want BackupPC to restore the files directly to your machine via the same transfer method that is used to back the files up. Note that the transfer method will need write access to the filesystem.
One other page frequently accessed by administrators is the Host Summary page, which provides a color-coded table of all of the hosts configured for the machine. In addition to the colors, which indicate current status, you can see the size of the last full and incremental backups, the speed of the backup, time since last backup, and last full backup. This gives you a quick bird's eye view of all the machines being backed up and quickly allows you to locate any trends or persistent problems.
Conclusions
BackupPC provides a comprehensive backup solution that is also user friendly. If you are looking to deploy a backup solution – particularly for end-user machines – you should certainly consider BackupPC.
Infos
- BackupPC: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
« Previous 1 2
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
News
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 Released
The latest release is focused on hybrid cloud.
-
Microsoft Releases a Linux-Based OS
The company is building a new IoT environment powered by Linux.
-
Solomon Hykes Leaves Docker
In a surprise move, Solomon Hykes, the creator of Docker has left the company.
-
Red Hat Celebrates 25th Anniversary with a New Code Portal
The company announces a GitHub page with links to source code for all its projects
-
Gnome 3.28 Released
The latest GNOME rolls out with better contact management and new features for handling virtual machines.
-
Install Firefox in a Snap on Linux
Mozilla has picked the Snap package system to deliver its application to Linux users.
-
OpenStack Queens Released
The new release comes with new features for mission critical workloads.
-
Kali Linux Comes to Windows
The Kali Linux developers even managed to run full blown XFCE desktop via WSL.
-
Ubuntu to Start Collecting Some Data with Ubuntu 18.04
It will be an ‘opt-out’ feature.
-
CNCF Illuminates Serverless Vision
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation announces a paper describing their model for a serverless ecosystem.