Re: Need help with backing up a Windows 98/2000 computer using rsync on a Debian Server running ssh
TAC Forums wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a Debian server running ssh which performs the job of a Backup Server.
>
> All the GNU/Linux workstations / servers on the network have a bash
> script that run in the cron to rsync the data folders to the main
> backup server at night.
>
> However, I am having difficulting finding an rsync binary for Windows
> that can talk to a Debian ssh server to sync the files.
>
> The rsync tools available on the net appear to talk with a
> Whitebox/Redhat/Fedora ssh server but I'm having trouble with getting
> it to work on a Debian ssh server.
>
> Any ideas on what I should do to get this to work? Maybe I am using
> the wrong rsync tool? Is there another rsync tool written for talking
> to the ssh server of Debian?
I recently solved a similar problem. My objective was to backup a
Windows XP machine on my home LAN onto a machine running Debian Testing.
After a few thoughts, I realized it was more secure to let the Debian
server query the XP box and do the backup, instead of the XP box
initiating the talking to the Debian server to 'upload' a backup. This
requires that rsync server be running on the XP box (and also openssh
for security reasons).
To do so, I installed the minimal Cygwin (the default installation) and
added rsync, openssh, cron, zip, cygsrv (sp?, cygrunsrv?) and a few
other packages (which may not be really related to rsync related stuff).
In all, the Cygwin installation used around 110MB of disk space. I
started up the sshd server and the rsync server. sshd service was made
dependency of tcpip and my Zone Alarm service before it could work
properly after reboots.
I then made a bash script on the Debian server to do backups using
rsync. I also generated ssh keys in the Debian machine (of root user)
and exported the public key to the Windows XP machine. With this
arrangement, I can now call the rysnc script in a cron job on the Debian
machine and it backs up the XP box via ssh and passwordless login.
Pretty neat, all these tools.
The only problem I faced was while dealing with shortcuts and MS Office
tmp files (they begin with $# or $~ or something like this). I am not
sure, but when the user in question (on XP box) removed his shortcuts
and cleaned up the left over MS Office tmp files, the backups were being
done as expected and without any problems -- otherwise the rsync command
was hanging.
If you want more specific details, just ask.
GL,
->HS
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