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Backups can be really frustrating for people. I would have to say that managing backups is probably the one thing that I detest the most about working in IT. It is a clunky, clumsy process that often does not present any problems until you need it. Because of these issues, many people do not back up their systems.
Unfortunately, this is one of those things about computers that you absolutely need to do, regardless of how difficult, annoying, and painful it may be. I have spent a lot of time looking at this issue and I have come up with what I think is one of the better ways to backup a system without relying on the end user to perform regular backups manually. Also, it can be centrally managed, regardless of whether or not the user’s system is running.
This solution uses rsync, a service that only copies the differences in files that it is backing up. That way, your 1.5 GB PST file that only adds a few KB each day does not have to copy the entire file each time you back up your system.
This article will show you how to install and configure rsync so that you can use it to backup your information to a FreeNAS server. (If you have not been following the FreeNAS articles, please go back and look at them if you need a quick refresher on FreeNAS.)
Installing Rsync on Windows
The easiest way to install rsync on Windows (in my experience) is to use DeltaCopy. DeltaCopy is a Windows port of rsync that enables you to run it as a Windows service. This means that your computer will beck up properly without having to be concerned about being logged in to the system.
There are two different ways that you can download and install DeltaCopy. The easiest way is to download the installer which then walks you through the installation. This is the method that we will use.
If you feel that you are up to the challenge, you can use the manual install version. This is probably a bit more difficult for the average user but it is definitely an option.
Once you have downloaded the installer package, extract the setup.exe file and double click it to begin the installation.
Click Next > to continue.
The next screen determine where DeltaCopy will install. You can use the default or change it to wherever you want. Click Next > when you finish.
Click Install to install DeltaCopy. This may take a couple of minutes but when it is finished, you should see this:
Click the Finish button to complete the installation and launch DeltaCopy for the first time.
If you found this post useful, why don't you buy me a cup of coffee to show your gratitude? Continued...
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January 15th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Hi, great article.
Is there an extra step to doing this if i was wanting to run FreeNAS as the rsync server. i can’t seem to make it work this way round.
thanks,
chris
January 17th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Wow..thanks for the articles…full of info.:D
February 6th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Lo,
first excuse my poor english …
I try to make an automatic backup of 2 directories on my computer to the FreeNAS computer.
When you say :”Please note that this must be the same as the mount point share name in FreeNAS where you will be backing up the data.”
I have a problem with this, because on my FreeNAS i have 2 hd , first one is for the FreeNAS system, second one 320 GIG for sharing my data between computers … but i didnt reserve a partition to make backup.
How can i now make a ‘mount’ with the same name ??? If it possible i would like to create on my large hd a directorie named BACKUP, and inside 2 others for my backup …
Mounted those 2, then rsync them by your method…
Possible ?
Thanks !
February 6th, 2007 at 7:58 am
As a follow up to this article, I wrote E-Mail Request: Windows to FreeNAS Rsync and E-Mail Request: RSYNCed Data Unavailable. I believe that these two posts can answer your questions.
Tim
February 10th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Hey!
I just wanted to put my 2 cents in.
I currently have a FreeNAS server running on a P3 1ghz, 512mb ram. Hardware Raid and 2 SATA 160gb drives.
The FreeNAS server is running as a RSYNC server.
I use DeltaCopy Client to connect to the FreeNAS server.
It is very easy to set up the connection profile by entering the IP of the FreeNAS server and testing the connection.
I back up 3 folders, My documents, Favorites and Desktop.
Since I also backup the same 3 folders on another PC and there is only 1 Virtual directory on the FreeNAS server, I use Junction Link majik.
I create 3 unique folders on the c: root and link them to the 3 Windows folders that I backup.
I now add those unique linked folders to my DeltaCopy list and force a backup.
This creates the folders and backs them up.
Now I create the schedule I want DeltaCopy to follow.
One thing I found on the scheduler.
Make sure you use a password on your Windows username. The scheduler requires this. I found the error message by viewing the “scheduled tasks” window in “system tools”.
Everything is working great and is fairly straighforward.
Does anyone see any caveats with this setup?
THanks
February 18th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
My turn for the 2 cents thing (cheaper, since mine are canadian!)
I have files and directories in the Windows box whose names contain foreign characters, like these: “é à è ê ç” etc. There is no way DeltaCopy will swallow those directory names at all. Turns out I’m not the only one with that problem, and that it’s not related to DeltaCopy itself, but to cygwin’s rsync. I’ve tried from Windows-2-Windows, Windows-2-Linux and Windows-2-FreeNAS (FreeBSD), and results are the same every time.
Oh well… back to my neanderthal method of backing up my data..
February 27th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I tried FreeNAS, and it is a quick way to setup a large number of functions at once. I was also stuck with the limitation of FreeNAS and a large drive with only one share. I investigated NASBackup which allowed redirection to subdirectories, but that program requires passwords on the server. That program also required the user name be the same as the share name for it to work with FreeNAS. Lastly, there is no restore function in NasBackup. But it does have a different interface.
I found the only way to set up the RSync server with multiple shares is to do it myself. IE load cent OS, load samba and rsync daemon.
However, if you dont mind using a package meant for VOIP, the preload trixbox for the Asterisk server includes samba and the rsync module. You just have to define the two rsync config files (password and shares) and the samba config file. Lastly use webmin to automatically start the rsync dsemon or just put it in the startup file.
I use deltacopy locally with diferent shares. I wish Delta copy had usernames and passwords built in so it could be used over the net.
Paul
March 19th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Great article.
After I got my brain on junction points for backing up multiple directories (see E-mail Request: Windows to FreeNAS Rsync) everything clicked and it works like a charm.
Nice website. Keep up the good work!
June 20th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Hi
i found your article very good, i am new to FreeNAS. I am trying to backup a folder on my pc to the FreeNAS machine. I have deltacopy server running, virtual directory set up on pc and enabled client rsyncd on FreeNAS.My FreeNAS machine contain 3 drives, 1 has FreeNAS install, other two 80gb’s are combined using raid 0 to look like 1 drive.The sharename of my drives is RaidIP31 and this is what i called the virtual directory on Windows machine.any suggestions as to what im doing wrong. any suggestions greatly appreciated.
June 28th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I tried this for the first time and i´m really happy with it.
first it did not work, because i forgot to configure my Windows firewall (open port 873).
only negative thing is that you can´t specify a destination folder where to save the backup files.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
FOr hos eof you having problems with characters etc. try iFolder. Sweeet. I know this is rsync thread but that may help you
September 5th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Hi:
May I know how to add password for folders in FreeNAS server? I checked some website, but they said there is no function like that in FreeNAS, help me please!
Regards
Lei, Song
October 14th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Hi,
I hope it’s not too stupid a question, but which way should the backup be going in this example?
I want to back up FROM Windows to FreeNAS, but using the setup described in this artcile, nothing seems to happen. If I set up Deltacopy client on the Windows machine to sync to the rsync server on the FreeNAS, then it works.
I prefer the setup which you describe because it’s easier to configure very frequent syncs using the rsync client in FreeNAS.
Anyway, thanks for the article - I’ve learned a lot, and it has helped me to set up a backup.
Dave
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:16 am
I am running DeltaCopy on a Windows XP pro machine. I am running both client and server. Everything works fine when I copy to an attached USB drive.
But I am having a problem copying to a mapped shared drive on another computer. The error in the event log when I try to copy to a drive mapped to Z:\ is:
The following information is part of the application event log: rsyncd: PID 4380: rsync: chdir /cygdrive/z failed
: No such file or directory (2).
Can anyone help on this issue? Is this a problem with running the client and server
on the same machine?
Thanks to anyone who can help.
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
If you are trying to get this to work to backup FROM the Windows machine TO the FreeNAS box you need to set it up the other way around.
Client running and scheduled on the Windows machine, RSYNCD server running on the FreeNAS box.
I eventually worked it out myself, not understanding what the other posts were telling me. Now i have got it to work, the other posts make more sense.
Hope my post here helps someone
January 21st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Chas D or Anyone
I’m running into the same situation. I can backup from a local drive where the DeltaCopy client is installed but when I schedule a backup for files on a shared drive it fails and the error message is as follows:
**************Error Log***************
Profile dd failed to execute.
Execution log
————-
building file list … rsync: link_stat “/cygdrive/O/dd/testdd.rtf” failed: No
such file or directory (2)
done
***************************
I would appreciate any help on this issue.
Thanks
May 8th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Hi there - great article.
I am having the very problems you warn against in page 2 - I naively clicked on “Register Windows Service” and entered a username and password, and the service won’t start, and I am having problems setting it back to blank. How do I get back to the “fresh installation” state where that button pops up again?
I tried uninstalling it but even after uninstalling and reinstalling it seems to “remember” that it was once installed and the “Register Windows Service” button does not come back…
May 11th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Thanks for great article. Just trying to get my head around it.
I want to backup the 2 fileservers based at my office to a pc based at my home and I’m looking into using DeltaCopy to do this.
All machines are Windows based.
I think that the home machine (which will be a dedicated machine with lots of disk space) will need to run DeltaCopy server as a Windows Service. (I’m not using FreeNAS).
The 2 machines at my office that I wish to backup are Windows Server 2003. I think that these need to run DeltaCopy client.
Will DeltaCopy run ok on this?
These machines are servers so they’re not generally logged in on the console – will DeltaCopy work ok in this situation, running on a schedule?
I want the backup machine to be a copy of whats on the servers, so if I delete a file from the server it should be deleted from the backup.
Does DeltaCopy do this?
Sorry for all the questions.
Hope you can help!
Regards,
Mike Feingold
May 16th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Hi,
Will FreeNAS act as server and client. I want to use FreeNAS as the fileserver and backup my videos and other media on FreeNAS as well. I do not want to have any media on my main PC. So what I am asking is if say I have 2 500 GB hard drives in my FreeNAS machine can one be a backup of the other and automated with rsync as if it was on 2 different boxes.
Thanks in advance,
C. Provias
May 17th, 2008 at 5:42 am
FreeNAS offers various alternative methods of syncing data across discs - depends on which version you’re using - see UNISON for example. Why don’t you just use software raid if they are two identical discs?
May 17th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Well, actually I mis-quoted myself. I have 2 X 250 GB drives and am going to add a 500 GB to double my capacity. So I could have a software raid of the 2X 250 to make a 500 GB drive but how does that then work. I am RAID stupid
Kryspy