Re: OT : Debian VPS for backup through SFTP protocol for a win10 client

["Gareth Evans" <donotspam@fastmail.fm>]

On Wed 28 Sep 2022, at 17:25, rudu <rudu@cegetel.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've set up openssh-server on a debian bullseye VPS which serves as a 
> backup for some folders of debian testing laptops.
> I'm using luckybackup for the clients part and all seems fine so far.
> Now I'm asked to add a pair of win10 boxes to the clients of that VPS, 
> and I don't know how I could do this.
> I tried successfully to mount my VPS volume as a network drive using 
> SSHFS for windows :
> https://github.com/winfsp/sshfs-win
> But I can't find a way or a software (preferably free) able to schedule 
> some incremental backup on it.
>
> I know I'm a bit OT on this, but maybe someone has already been there 
> and could send me in the right direction.
>
> Thanks for reading me anyway,
> Rudu

Hi Rudu,

I must admit to not having actually done this with Windows, but as no one has yet replied  with concrete experience, some ideas:

Borgbackup is excellent 

https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

and is said to work on Windows via either Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

or Cygwin

https://www.cygwin.com/

For the latter approach, the script below (or one like it) may be useful:

https://github.com/santiagobiali/borg-cygwin

Alternatively, BackupPC supports Windows:

https://backuppc.github.io/backuppc

Alternatively, rsync (again via WSL or Cygwin) or cwrsync may be useful.

https://www.itefix.net/cwrsync

It might be simpler (or at least another option is...) to use rsync to sync changes to the server, then use borg to create local (automatically deduplicated) archives on the server, from the ever-current/latest backup.

I would be interested to know if you discover anything else good for Windows.

robocopy + server-side borg might work (and might be simpler than Cygwin/WSL etc), but I'm not sure if robocopy is capable of operating beyond the LAN.  All of the examples I can find, such as

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/computer-backup/sync-changes-only-with-robocopy.html

https://pureinfotech.com/robocopy-transfer-files-fast-network-windows-10/

make use of local hostnames or local IP addresses, though if you can mount sshfs as a drive/folder that may not be an issue.

I'd be interested to hear how you get on, however you approach it.

Best wishes,
Gareth