File Protection and rsync

Rsync Data Hosts

As Rsync is an open protocol, you have the option of either storing your data on a third party rsync host server, or supporting an rsync host server yourself.

For more information on how to get the most out of Rsync, visit our Video Presentations page.

Third Party & S3Rsync hosting

Third party data centers, ISPs and cloud providers can support Rsync backup destinations. These solutions have the advantage of high availability networks and scalable storage. 

BackupAssist includes a dedicated configuration screen for backups to Amazon S3 via the S3Rsync ( www.S3Rsync.com) service. To backup to Amazon S3 with Rsync you will need:

• Amazon AWS S3 account (aws.amazon.com/s3/)

In your Amazon Web Services account, you will need to obtain your Access Key ID and generate a Secret Access Key. Then you will need to create an S3 bucket to use for your backups. See http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/amazon-s3-simple-storage-service-guide/3889/ for a guide to the Amazon S3 Simple Storage Service.

• S3Rsync account (www.S3Rsync.com)

When you sign up for an www.S3Rsync.com account, you will be given a username and a private SSH key file. Save the SSH key file somewhere on the machine on which you wish to run BackupAssist.

• BackupAssist

You can set up your rsync backup job in BackupAssist using the S3Rsync Destination selection. See the Creating a File Protection backup using Rsync section of this guide for more information.

Do-it-yourself hosting overview

Any rsync Server such as an rsync-enabled NAS device, a Windows Server or a Unix machine can be used to store backups using rsync. The do-it-yourself approach has the advantage of keeping data in your control and a lack of monthly hosting fees.

Rsync servers can be one of two types:

• Rsync over SSH (preferred) runs Rsync via a secure shell (SSH, port 22) which means all traffic over the internet is encrypted. User access control is modified by editing user accounts on the server.
• Daemon mode runs Rsync as a normal TCP/IP service. User access control is modified by editing the Rsync.conf file. Internet traffic is not encrypted. To learn more, review our online article Configuring BackupAssist for Rsync without SSH , under the section, Altering the rsyncd.conf file.

In the following sections, the Windows and Linux data hosts support Rsync over SSH. However, some NAS devices do not, and Daemon mode must be used instead. Daemon mode is still an acceptable solution provided a secured LAN/WAN (such as site-to-site VPN) is used.

Do-it-yourself hosting: Windows Rsync host

To set up a Windows machine to act as an Rsync Server , you will first need to install both SSH and Rsync. We recommend CopSSH and cwRsync. An installer for each can be found on our website by visiting https://www.backupassist.com/rsync.

Prerequisites:

• Windows Server 2008, 2012 or 2016 machine with network connectivity and space to store backup data.
• Windows Serve 2008, 2012 or 2016 are ideal platforms due to their support for both backup histories and single-instance store in Rsync backup solutions.
• Windows Small Business Servers (SBS) should not be used as Rsync hosts.
• The cwRsync installer.
• The CopSSH installer.
• BackupAssist v5.4.8 or later installed on a separate Windows machine (designated Rsync client).

Installing cwRsync:

1. Run the cwRsyncServer installer.

2. Continue through the install wizard, installing the package to a location of your choice.

3. During the installation you will be presented with the popup on the right. We suggest leaving the SvcCWRSYNC account as is. Write down the password provided.

4. Click Install to install the package. Once this is finished cwRsync will be present on your system.

Installing CopSSH:

1. Run the CopSSH installer.

2. Continue through the install wizard, installing the package to a location of your choice.

3. During the installation you will be presented with the popup on the right. We suggest leaving the SvcCOPSSH account as is. Write down the password provided.

4. Click Install to complete the process of installing CopSSH on your system.

5. During the Activate user part of the installation, you will be presented with a popup showing the service status and any active connections. At any time after the install you can access Activate a user from your start menu to allow SSH access to that user. You must activate at least one user before you can register an Rsync client.

6. Click OK to continue your installation.

Activating a user

If you are planning to use SSH, then before you register a BackupAssist client with your Rsync server, you must activate a user with CopSSH.

1. In the Start menu, under All Programs -> CopSSH, select. The CopSSH Control Panel will open.

2. To start the process to activate a user, click on the Users tab across the top of the user interface.

3. Click on the Add button to bring up the wizard to activate a user.

DO NOT ACTIVATE USING YOUR ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT. Doing so will cause a lock down on the account due to CopSSH's security settings. We recommend activating a newly created account.

4. Click Forward on the opening screen.

5. On the second screen, select the Domain and type in the user which you wish to activate.

Click Forward once complete (admin is a manually created account we'll use for this example).

6. Change the Access Type to Linux Shell and Sftp using the drop-down menu.

Leave all Options enabled as they are by default.

7. On the fourth screen, click on Apply to complete the wizard and activate the user.

The user should now be showing as activated within the CopSSH Control Panel.

Your user's home directory will be located at (for example) C:\Program Files\ICW\home\user.

The location of this directory can be changed by editing the file C:\Program Files\ICW\etc\passwd.

Note : If you uninstall the CWRsync server, be aware that the Windows service users SvcCOPSSH and SvcCWRSYNC are not removed. So if you then re-install the CWRsync server package the Windows users cannot be recreated because the passwords will not match. This ultimately means the COPSSH and rsync services will not start on the server. The fix is to uninstall and remove the users manually then re-install to add the users again with known passwords.

Do-it-yourself hosting: Linux rsync host

Most FreeBSD and Linux servers can be used to host backup data. BackupAssist has two requirements: that the data host has an SSH server and rsync installed. All major Linux distributions (such as Fedora, RedHat Enterprise, Ubuntu, Debian) have these two prerequisites available as install options. The most common SSH server is OpenSSH.

Note : You can choose to run rsync as a daemon on your Linux server. (For security reasons, we do not recommend this - use rsync over SSH instead.) If you choose to run rsync in daemon mode, you will not need to have the SSH service installed. For instructions on setting up BackupAssist to connect to an rsync daemon please view the Configuring the BackupAssist client for a NAS server section below on page 8.

To determine if your system has the prerequisites installed, log into your system, start a shell and type:

man rsync - this should return the man page for rsync if installed. Type 'q' to exit the man page.

man sshd - this should return the man page for sshd if installed. Type 'q' to exit the man page.

You should use your distribution's software package manager to install these packages, if they are not already installed. Most commonly they can be found under the Server or Security categories. The next step is to create logons on your data host. We recommend creating a separate logon for each client. For example, if you host data for 5 different companies, create 5 different accounts so that each company will only be able to see their own data. You should also make sure that each client's home directories are on a partition that contains sufficient space to host their data.

You must also change the permissions on each user's home directory, otherwise most SSH daemons will not allow you to connect to the server using the public/private key method (which BackupAssist uses). To do this, use the chmod command - for example for a user "fred", type in the following (when logged on as root): chmod 700 /home/fred

Do-it-yourself hosting: NAS rsync host

Backing up to an rsync-enabled NAS can be a very effective solution. The advantage of using a NAS is that, as an appliance, it can be close to a turnkey solution and easier to manage. Each NAS is different and some support rsync over SSH, whereas others only support rsync Daemon mode. There is however a list of requirements that must be met in order for BackupAssist to connect to the device.

To use your NAS as an rsync data host you will need:

• A NAS that is running rsync as a daemon, or one that has rsync and an SSH service running.
• Setup a share to act as a root directory for your rsync backups and allow read and write permissions to that directory.
• If your NAS requires a password to connect to the rsync service, you will need BackupAssist to authenticate to it.
• Your NAS will need to have the correct ports open for your rsync Daemon or SSH service (873 and 22 respectively).

The options vary from device to device. You will need to consult your manual to setup the destination.

Below is a selection of NAs vendors that support rsync

• QNAP
• drobo
• NETGEAR
• Synology

Do-it-yourself hosting: host configuration tips

The following table contains tips designed to address common mistakes and highlight considerations that will help you set up an rsync host.

Rsync Backup Considerations

The performance and flexibility of backing up across the internet can depend on how Rsync is implemented. Below are some key considerations when planning your rsync backup solution.

Setup considerations

Backup user accounts

Rsync backup jobs require a BackupAssist administrator account with read access to the data source. This is set up using the Backup user identity, option in the Settings tab. The backup job will also need an rsync host account with read-write access to the rsync destination. This is enabled on the host server, and entered in the rsync destination screen.

Data Seeding

Rsync backups are incremental backups. The first time you perform your backup, no data will exist on the data host so a full backup will be required. Seeding your backup via an internet connection may not be practical, so two methods are provided to seed your data host. These are explained in the File Protection using rsync Backup Management tab.

Backup source & frequency

Run your rsync job regularly. Regular daily backups will ensure that you keep your data transfer to a minimum and your data up-to-date.

Simultaneous backups

If you have a large number of backup jobs sending data to a host at the same time, the connections may become unreliable. It is recommended that you limit the host connections 5 at a time. Depending on storage requirements and the bandwidth available, you may increase this number with caution.

Exchange databases and SQL databases

VSS applications including Exchange, SQL and Hyper-V, can be backed up to an rsync destination using File Protection. Simply choose the VSS application that you want to back up from the list of detected applications. You can even drill down and choose individual components (databases, storage groups, etc.) to backup. For Hyper-V, we recommended System Protection backups, which do not support the rsync destination but do support granular Hyper-V guest restores.

Synchronizing drive images using rsync

Rsync is a destination for File Protection backups. It is possible for the data source to be a System Protection image backup, but this solution is not recommended because significant performance issues that can arise. If you want to back up important files to an rsync host, the best way is to back up those files using File Protection directly. Continue to create your image backups, but back up the important files independently using a File Protection rsync backup job.

We also advise against using File Protection’s rsync, to transfer File Archiving backups to an rsync host. This is because rsync uses a checksum method to perform the bit level data transfer. Rsync checks whether any data has changed by looking at the file size and modification date. This is fast and simple on a regular file system, but if you have a very large single archive file (>10 GB) it will take much longer to complete, even if only a small element has changed.

Technology considerations

Using a NAS device as a data host

Many dedicated NAS devices offer built-in support for rsync. While this can be convenient to set up, many of these devices use low-powered processors which can result in reduced performance if you are backing up large files (several GB or larger in a single file). The example below illustrates the difference in backup time for a dedicated QNAP NAS, versus an ordinary desktop Linux machine. The initial backup is a single 18.8GB file. The second backup consists of about 200MB or changes to that file.

Data compression and encryption

BackupAssist supports encryption and compression on the server. BackupAssist for rsync offers industry standard encryption for data stored on the data host. This means that your data is safe "in the cloud", making external hosting a safe and secure option. Your files are also automatically compressed on the Data Host, which reduces the amount of disk space used on your hosting company.

Rsync for BackupAssist uses four types of compression:

• Effective transfer compression by only sending changed data.
• All data packets are compressed and encrypted during transfer.
• Single Instance Store (SIS) uses hard link technology to prevent the same files from being stored more than once across backups on your host.
• The source data is encrypted and compressed in an rsync-friendly way before transmission, effectively minimizing the space used by files on the server even further.

Note : If you enable or disable encryption for an rsync job, BackupAssist will need to re-seed the backup to the host with a full set of data (i.e. the next backup will be a full backup).

Note : Data compression has a significant performance impact when encrypting your files for rsync.

Single-Instance store

File Protection backups cannot use single-instance store when the backup is saved on a ReFS formatted rsync destination. This means all the data will be backed up each time the backup job runs.

Preservation of file attributes

Because rsync works on top of the Cygwin Unix emulation layer, it does not recognize Windows file attributes (e.g. read-only, hidden), NTFS security attributes (i.e. access control lists), NTFS alternate data streams or file creation times. The only file system attribute preserved when using rsync to transfer data is the Last modified time attribute.

BackupAssist's implementation of rsync overcomes this limitation by having the option to store NTFS metadata on the backup destination. This option is enabled in the Manage screen under Rsync options. This is checked by default for new jobs created in BackupAssist v7. If enabled, NTFS streams and security data will be saved to a separate file on the destination and then added back to the file as part of the restore process, when using the Integrated Restore Console. So while these attributes are not "preserved" on the files backed up to your rsync destination, they will still be restored.

This table outlines what attributes are preserved with the NTFS metadata option:

Using rsync for files and directories

Rsync performs best when working directly on the file system, backing up normal files and directories. Rsync does not perform nearly as well synchronizing backup files offsite.

Below is an example of how rsync performs:

• File system with 50,000 files, 50 GB total
• 50 files of total size 50 MB have changed

Rsync is able to identify which of the 50 files have changed, and for those files, it determines what changed. It calculates checksums on 50MB of data, and can complete the backup in a matter of minutes. The amount of data transferred will be around 20MB for typical documents.

Compare this to a scenario where you use a File Protection backup job to transfer an image file created by a System Protection backup, to an rsync destination. In this example, the VHD is 50GB.

Rsync will detect that the single .vhd file has changed, and needs to determine the in-file deltas. It needs to calculate checksums on 50GB of data, which may take hours. Additionally, we have found that even if the underlying file system changes very little, about 10% of a .vhd file changes from day to day and needs to be transferred. So, about 5GB will be transferred.

We see here that it is greatly preferable in terms of bandwidth and CPU time the operate rsync on the underlying file system rather than a backup of that file system.

File size and the number of files

In theory, there is no limit to the number of files or directories that you can rsync. Even though rsync only transfers the data that has changed, it still must read all of the data in the file set to check what data has changed. This makes rsync internet backups a disk/CPU intensive operation that can take longer the more your data grows, no matter how little data has actually changed.

We recommend that wherever possible, you use one of the other backup methods provided in BackupAssist (such as BackupAssist's File Archiving) to regularly archive infrequently used data, so the amount of actual data in day to day use is minimized.

We have run tests on several different file systems - a typical file system of 70,000 files and 24 GB with fewer than 50 MB of daily changes can be synced in around 10 minutes. The largest file system we've tested is of 200,000 files and 100 GB, which took 20 minutes to sync minimal changes.

Creating a File Protection Backup using rsync

The following instructions describe how to create a File Protection backup job to back up your data to an rsync host.

Launch BackupAssist and follow the steps outlined below:

1. Select the Backup tab, and click Create a new backup Job

2. Select File Protection

If this is the first time you have created a backup job, you will be asked to provide a Backup user identity if one has not been defined.

3. Selections: The selections screen is used to select the data and applications that you would like to back up. Any VSS applications detected will be displayed here as application directory containers.

Select the volumes, folders, files and applications that you want to back up, and click Next.

4. Destination media: The destination screen is used to select the type of media that you want to back your data up to.

Select Rsync or S3Rsync for your backup destination, and click Next.

The S3Rsync option is for backups that use both Amazon S3 and the S3Rsync.com service.

Select Enable Rsync file based encryption if you want the backup data to be encrypted.

File Protection backup - Rsync destination selection

5. Schedule: This screen is used to select when and how you would like the backup job to run, and how long you would like the backup to be retained for. A selection of pre-configured schedules, called schemes, will be displayed.

• The schemes available will depend on the type of destination media selected in step 4.
• Clicking on a scheme will display information about the schedule used.
• The schedule can be customized after the backup job has been created.

For more information about creating custom schedules, refer to the Backup tab user guide.

6. Set up destination. The screen is used to configure your rsync destination. The configuration screen displayed will depend on whether Rsync or S3Rsync was selected.

IF the standard rsync Destination was selected, follow the guidelines below:

BackAssist File Protection - Rsync destination selection

a. Rsync Server: Enter your rsync server name (or IP address).

b. Server Type: Select Rsync over SSH, Rsync Daemon or Rsync Daemon over SSH tunnel.

c. Port: The default port will display for the server type selected.

d. Path on server: It is best to use a new, empty directory for this path. The parent directory must exist. The sub directories will be created when the job is first run: /parent/sub_directory/.

If your data host is running Windows, you can enter a normal Windows path here, such as "C:\Backups". You can also enter a path relative to the user's home directory by starting with a tilde ( e.g. "~/Backups").

If your data host is running Linux, you can use an absolute path by starting with a slash or a path relative to the user's home directory by starting with a tilde (e.g. "~/Backups").

e. Username: Enter the username that was activated when the rsync host was set up.

f. Register with server: Selecting this option will prompt you to enter the password. BackupAssist will then create a public/private key pair to authenticate you to the data host.

g. Test connection: Use this button to test your connection to the rsync server. If this step fails but the registration succeeded, the problem may be that the Path on server cannot be accessed.

IF the S3Rsync Destination was selected, follow the guidelines below:

BackAssist File Protection - S3Rsync destination selection

The information below is provided when you create:

• An Amazon S3  account
• An S3rsync service account.

a. Rsync Server: This should be farm.s3rsync.com (the default setting) unless you have been advised otherwise by s3rsync (www.s3rsync.com).

b. Port: This should be 22.

c. Amazon S3 bucket: You can leave this blank unless you want to set up multiple backup jobs using the same bucket (not recommended).

d. Set Path: Specify any folders you have created in the bucket.

e. Access Key ID: Enter your S3 Access Key ID.

f. Secret Access Key: Enter your S3 Secret Access Key.

g. S3rsync username: Your username supplied by S3Rsync ( www.S3Rsync.com). Note: this is different to your Amazon username.

h. S3Rsync SSH key path: The location of the saved SSH key file provided by S3Rsync ( www.S3Rsync.com).

i. If you selected Enable Rsync file based encryption, you will be prompted to create a password.

Once you have set up your rsync destination, click Next

Note: It is important that you keep a copy of your password in a safe place, as we cannot retrieve passwords if they are lost or forgotten.

For information on configuring S3Rsync, see the Third setting Party data host: up S3Rsync section of this guide.

For information on configuring S3Rsync, see the Rsync setup guide.

Once you have set up your Rsync destination, click Next

Mail Server: If you have not configured an SMTP mail server for BackupAssist, you will be prompted to provide those details after the backup destination step has been completed. See the BackupAssist settings section for guidance.

7. Notifications: Once a backup job has completed, BackupAssist can send an email to inform selected recipients of the result. This email notification can be enabled during the creation of a backup job, if the mail server has been configured.

To enable email notifications:

a. Select, Add an email report notification.

b. Enter recipients into the Send reports to this email address field.

c. Enter recipients into the Also send reports to this email address field. You can then select the condition under which the email should be sent, using the drop-down box.

File Protection - Notifications setup

After the backup job has been created, you can modify the notifications by adding and removing recipients, setting additional notification conditions and including print and file notification types.

To learn more about notification options, see the Backup tab user guide.

8. Prepare media: This step will be skipped because rsync backups do not use removable media.

9. Name your backup: Provide a name for your backup. Click Finish.

The File Protection with rsync backup job has now been created.

Important: Once a backup job has been created, it should be reviewed and run using the Manage menu. This menu provides additional options to configure your backup. See the section, File Protection using rsync backup management for more information.

Important: Once the backup has been created, it should be checked. You can check the backup by performing a manual test restore, or using the Backup Verification feature.

Restoring from a File Protection Backup

The Restore tab displays the restore options available. This section provides instructions on how to use the Local and Network Files restore option, which is used to restore files and folders and VSS applications that do not have their own specific restore option.

The other restore options are documented in technology specific guides, as follows:

• For Hyper-V Host File and Hyper-V Granular restore, see the Hyper-V Protection guide.
• For SQL Server and SQL Point-in-Time restores, see the SQL Protection guide
• For Exchange Server and Exchange Granular restores, see the Exchange Protection guide

To restore data from a File Protection backup, follow these steps:

1. Select the Restore tab

The Restore tab has a Home page and a Tools page. The Home page is the default page and the recommended starting point for performing a restore. The Tools page should only be used by experienced administrators or users being assisted by technical support.

2. Select Local and Network Files

This will display the volumes backed up by this installation of BackupAssist. It can also show backups from other machines added using the Discover Backups button, which is explained below.



Restore tab

Expand a volume to display all of the backups available for that volume. There are tabs above each volume’s backup list to help locate the required backup.

• The Last 7 days and Last 30 days tabs can be used to display the backups within those ranges.
• The Custom tab allows you to select a specific date range and display backups for that period.

The Search button allows you to locate files to restore across multiple backups. When you select Search, the Restore console will display the Search page.



Search backups

1. The Backups section allows you to use the Jobs Filter, to limit the search to specific backup jobs. You can also use the Backup Date filter search within a specified date range.
2. The Search section is used to enter a search term associated with the name of the file you want to find. The Search for field will take the string provided and search for occurrences of that string within a file or directory name. The results of the search are displayed by backup. To perform a restore, select the file or files that you want to restore and select the Restore button.

   To refine the search, use the Created, Modified and Size options. Ticking any of these options will activate a drop down list of variables to select from. For Created and Modified, you can select a date using the Calendar selection fields. For Size, you can select the file size in bytes.

The Discover Backups button allows you to browse for backup catalogs created by deleted jobs and other servers. Selecting those backups will add them to the list of available backups.

3. Select the backup that you want to restore from

Clicking on a backup’s name will open the Integrated Restore Console (IRC). The Integrated Restore Console is used to select the data to be restored, where to restore it to and the restore conditions.

4. Select the files, folders or applications that you want to restore


Integrated Restore Console

• Use the left pane to locate and select the data that you want to restore.
• The right pane will display the contents of the folder selected in the left pane.
5. Select Where to restore the data to

Follow these steps to select the restore destination and restore options:

1. Under Where to restore select To original location or To Specific location.
2. Use the Browse button to locate and select the restore destination.
3. Use the drop down box to set the overwrite rules. The overwrite rules will apply if the files being restored encounter files with the same name in the restore destination.

You can select:

• Overwrite existing files - The restored files will overwrite files in the restore destination.
• Do not overwrite existing files – The restored files will not overwrite files in the restore destination. This means the files will not be restored.
• Only overwrite older files - If a source file has changed since the backup was made it will not be overwritten.
4. Review the Restore NTFS security attributes option

If you select this option, the NTFS security attributes the file had when it was backed up will be retained when the file is restored. The NTFS security attributes can be viewed in the Security tab on the file’s Properties

5. Review the Take ownership of restored files option

Selecting the Take ownership of restored files tick box will give the current user ownership of the restored files. The user is shown to the right of the text box description.

6.  Select Restore


Integrated Restore Console

When you select the Restore button, the restore process will begin. The Integrated Restore Console will display information about the restore job and provide status updates as the job runs.

Selecting List all processed files and folders … will open notepad and display a list of the files restored, including their full path.

Select Done

Once the restore has finished, selecting Done will return you to the main UI.

Your File Protection using rsync restore has now been completed.

Important: The Integrated Restore Console can restore encrypted files, but you will need to supply the password. It is important that you keep a copy of your password in a safe place, as we cannot assist you with opening password encrypted files if your password is lost or forgotten.

Helpful hint: These instructions explain how to restore data using the Integrated Restore console. If you do not have BackupAssist installed and need to restore a File Protection backup, you can manually browse the rsync destination and transfer data back using any method permissible by your host.

File Protection using rsync Backup Management

Once you have created a backup job, you can modify the settings and access advanced configuration options using the management screen.

To access the backup management screen:

1. Select the BackupAssist, Backup tab.

2. Select Manage from the top menu. A list of all backup jobs will be displayed.

3. Select the backup job you want to modify, and select Edit.

4. Select the required configuration item on the left. Key configurations are described below.

To learn more about the backup management options, see the Backup tab user guide.

Rsync options

Select the Rsync options item from the left hand menu. The Rsync options page contains 15 different configurations for backing up your data across the internet including:

• Rsync and SSH command line options.
• Data transfer limits.
• Backup permissions.
• Backup logging and a media usage report.
• Rsync encryption and encryption password.

Rsync Data Seeding

Rsync backups are incremental backups. The first time you perform your backup, no data will exist on your data host so a full backup is required. If you enable or disable encryption for an rsync job, BackupAssist will need to re-seed the backup to the rsync backup destination with a full set of data.

Seeding your backup via an internet connection can take a long time. For this reason, two data seed options are available for rsync host servers that you have local access to. This may exclude third party vendors. Once the initial seed to the data host is complete, each successive backup will be an incremental backup of data that has changed.

Option 1 - Seeding a permanently offsite data host

You can use BackupAssist’s Seed Backup function, to automatically seed data offsite using a removable media, which can be physically transported to the data host so that the data can be uploaded locally.

To seed your data using this method, follow these steps:

1. Connect a removable media device to the machine running BackupAssist.

2. Select the Destination menu item.

3. Click the Seed backup button and select the location of an empty folder on your portable media.

Manage backup jobs screen - Destination seeding

4. Once the seed is complete, your portable media should contain:

• A directory with the seeded data
• A README.txt file containing instructions on how to copy the seed to your rsync server
• An .sh script file, which is used to copy your data to your rsync server.

5. Transport the portable media containing the seed to the site where your rsync server is located.

6. Connect the device to the rsync server and copy the seed to it:

For a Windows server (assuming the seed is located on E:\SeedFolder)

a. Go to the Start menu > CopSSH > Start a Unix BASH shell.

b. Enter the following command: bash "/cygdrive/e/SeedFolder/seed.sh".

For a Linux or Unix server (assuming the seed is located in /mnt/usbdrive/SeedFolder).

a. Run the following command in your shell: bash "/mnt/usbdrive/SeedFolder/seed.sh".

A complete seed of your data should now be copied to your rsync server. Each successive backup from now on will be an in-file delta incremental backup of data that has changed.

Option 2 - Bringing your data host onsite to perform the seed

This method is suitable for "standalone" data hosts (where a data host is not shared among multiple clients) that can be physically transported onsite - such as NAS devices.

Seeding your data is easy - simply follow these instructions:

1. Connect your data host to the LAN and make a note of its IP address / Hostname.

2. Create your BackupAssist rsync job, run it at convenient time and wait for it to complete.

3. Move your NAS to its permanent location.

4. Update the job settings in BackupAssist to reflect the new IP address / Hostname.

Scheduling

Selecting Scheduling will display the Scheduling options. You can use this screen to change the default time and days of your scheme's daily backups. If you selected a scheme with archive backups (e.g. weekly, monthly), you can specify when each archive backup will run. The current scheme is shown, along with two pop-up menus: Select a new schedule and Customize schedule.

Select a new Schedule: This will display the pre-configured backup schemes that you chose from during the creation of your backup job. The selections available will depend on the type of destination media you have selected. You can select a different scheme using this option.

Customize schedule: This selection can be used to modify each backup within your current schedule. The customizations available will depend on the type of backup media used. For File Protection backups, the Method field can only be set to Automatic. This is because single instance store provides the benefit of incremental backups in a full backup format. This technology is managed by BackupAssist and does not require further modification.

For additional information on the Scheduling screen, please refer to the Backup tab user guide.

Files and applications: VSS

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a Microsoft Service that creates a copy of an application's data (e.g. Exchange and SQL) so the data can be backed up without interfering with the application. BackupAssist is a VSS-aware backup client, so it can backup application data using VSS. BackupAssist will automatically detect locally running VSS applications and list them for selection during the Destination step of the backup job creation.

VSS applications are displayed under the Files and applications menu item. You can modify your backup job by selecting entire VSS applications or drilling down to individual components.

In some cases, only applications that are currently running will be detected. If an application is not listed, try re-starting it and then click the Refresh button in BackupAssist.

Open files: VSS writers

If you selected a VSS application, it is recommended that you disable the Enable VSS writers option. If a VSS application is detected, the Volume Shadow Copy Service and Enable VSS writers options will be selected by default. VSS writers contact all applications before and after a backup. This process is slow and can cause the VSS application to register that a backup has been completed when it has not.

Troubleshooting FAQ

Test connection failed : Ensure that you are able to ping your rsync server from your BackupAssist server and that you have opened up the appropriate ports on your firewall. Make sure that the username can access the path you have specified.

SSH Connection Refused : Ensure that the services Openssh SSHD and RsyncServer are started on the data host machine (Administrative Tools > Services). Make sure your firewall is not blocking the attempt.

Register with server failed : Ensure that you have the correct username and password set up on your rsync server.

Data host: The server that has been set up to host backup data.

Client : The machine that BackupAssist is installed on, that sends data to the data host.

SSH Authentication: For SSH communication, we use a public / private key method of authentication, meaning that you will only be asked for your password once (when registering with the server), and your public key will be uploaded to the server, enabling BackupAssist to log into the server in the future in a secure, password-less manner. For more information on public / private key authentication, visit the following Wikipedia article: Wikipedia Public Key Cryptography

Daemon Authentication: In Daemon mode, your password is stored in an encrypted format by BackupAssist and provided every time the backup runs. When running in Daemon mode, traffic will be unencrypted. For this reason, we recommend that you only use closed network environments, such as LANs or WANs connected by a secure VPN. VPNs inherently encrypt communication between nodes, so using rsync in Daemon mode over a VPN is still secure.