Dave Loper wrote:

One strategy using Backup PC is to backup another server using Backup PC. In this paradigm you have one onsite server that manages backup and little else. From there you can backup PCs as the name would imply but you can also backup your ClearOS and other servers. I've even seen deployments where they uses VSS and LVM snapshots to do quite sophisticated backups using Backup PC.

Dave, I recently removed the old server from the school and found it's not actually as dated as I had thought, so now I'm thinking of using your method of backup by loading clearos and backup pc on the old server, and can backup pc's on the network, but also the main server. Is that correct? So would I just load up the community os edition on the server, add backup pc and would be able to see the main server? What would be backed up?

Thanks,
Jeff

Thanks! I'll have to give that a try!

Thanks Andrew for the suggestion. I think it might be overkill for this situation. I guess I'm just going to keep it simple and create a batch file in windows that creates a folder on a backup NAS device. Right now it determines if it's the first of the month, if so it creates a folder in the "Monthly" folder of today's date, calls WinSCP and copies everything from the users home directories, the flexshares, and the configuration files created from the backup program in clearOS. Otherwise it creates a folder in the "Daily" folder with today's date and copies it there. I'll figure a way to groom out the old ones later. It's a simple copy, so if the school principal needs to locate an older file, all he has to do is browse the backup drive, find it, and drag it to his system. No decompressing or restoring programs to figure out. I know it's not the most efficient, but they only have about 100gb of data, and they already have a raid 5 NAS with 4TB of space. (previous consultant told them they needed that). I've encountered so many backup systems in the past that previous consultants setup that are so complicated, and nobody ever knows if they are working or not. The previous consultant sold them the NAS Raid 5 and setup backup exec for the windows server. They were charging the school every month to remote in and check that it was backing up. When the time came they needed a folder restored....low and behold...it hadn't been backing up in months. Just kept charging them every month....Gotta love it! I tried to upload the backup.bat file I was using, but it says it's an unsupported format...Sorry!

How about Veeam software? Anyone used it before as a backup? They have a free linux version, but of course I have no idea if it would work or not, and I'm not real keen on getting into the command line stuff. Here's the instruction sheet, see if it looks like it might work?

So far I'm not coming up with much, but I do have another question. When using bare metal backup, it creates three files on the usb drive. One for home, flexshare and the config. Is there a way to access these files and copy them with winscp? I wouldn't mind using the bare metal backup if I could also take those backup files and copy them to off site storage, which I could do with scripting in winscp, but I can't find the backup files on the usb drive. Any suggestions?

Map to all home directories for admin

So again, new here, so try not to trash me too bad! I've searched on this topic, and found things about moving the home drives, and something about a mount bind command that could be used with the home directories and a flexshare drive. But the conversation was way over my head so I'm not sure it that's what could be done or not.

Basically, I want the admins to be able to map a drive (flexshare?) on their win 7 stations, to the /home folders. So if an employee leaves, can't find something, someone's out of the office, etc. someone can have access to the home folders of all employees. I'm not sure if the mount bind thing was creating an alias to the /home folders, or moving them, or what exactly. So any advice would be appreciated!

What about if I could find a win 7 backup program, that can also backup linux stations? What would I look for to make sure it's compatible with clearOS? CentOS? (sorry, this is all new to me, so my terminology may not be correct)

Thanks for the recommendations. I did download backupPC but couldn't figure out how to backup itself, I'll have to look again. I'll also look at spideroak and see how that looks. I see it's cloud based and pretty reasonable for the charge for space.

Jeff Taylor wrote:

Wow, there sure is a delay from the time you hit reply until it actually posts.

Hi Jeff,
It is because you are a new user. The first couple of posts have to be approved by the Clearcenter team before they appear as we had a spam problem a while back. The downside is that new users often post twice and I end up having to delete one of the posts (I can delete posts but not approve new users' posts).