Using Linux to backup Windows Shares

[Erik Rasmussen]

Has anyone used Linux with Linux backup software to automatically run scheduled backups of files & directories located on Windows Server Shares onto the Linux machine?

[Business environment running Windows servers that contain files needing to be backed-up, but would like to see them backed up onto a Linux machine using Linux software.]

If you've done this or read of it being done, what software did you/they use?

How did you handle passing the Windows Credentials to gain access from the Linux machine to the Windows machine?

[On the Linux machine, I can browse the network using the Dolphin file manager and access the Windows Servers, but Dolphin will prompt for Windows credentials, and after I provide them I can access the Windows Share and copy files to the Linux machine...  Perhaps I have not tried the right Linuxbackup software yet, but the ones I tried do not seem to provide a place to give the Windows credentials...thus the Linux software I've tried cannot connect to the Windows Shares.]

Tips, tricks, suggestions, links, etc. are all appreciated!

[Dale Noll]

A long time ago, I used 'smbtar' to do simple backups of Windows machines from Linux.  It got files, but not much else. The registry and permissions were not backed up.  Credentials can be passed on the command line, just like smbclient.

I have been meaning to take a serious look at 'amanda' (amanda.zamanda.com).  I know there is a Windows client, but I am not sure of it's capabilities.

Another program that is on my list to look at is 'bacula' (bacula.org). Again, I have little actual knowledge regarding usage of this.  I think I read an article in a Linux magazine a while ago.

Good luck and let us know what you find out. I am sure it will be of interest to the group.

Dale

[Gary Nutbeam]

I have been using Amanda for years, and I'm very happy with it.

http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Zmanda_Windows_Client

On 12/18/2012 08:47 PM, Erik Rasmussen wrote:

[Erik Rasmussen]

Are you using the paid version or the open-source version?

Does Amanda require the paid version in order to backup Windows shares?

[Gary Nutbeam]

Open source and you can either use the backup shares method or the
native win32 client, which is open source, i.e. "zmanda community
edition". Amanda is pretty easy to set up as long as you don't forget to
setup ownership and permissions :-)

Amanda has pretty good documention and the have a getting started
quickly document.

http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Main_Page

On 12/19/2012 10:08 AM, Erik Rasmussen wrote:
> Are you using the paid version or the open-source version?
>
> Does Amanda require the paid version in order to backup Windows shares?
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Gary Nutbeam
> <nut...@acrossthebigpond.com <mailto:nut...@acrossthebigpond.com>> wrote:
>
> I have been using Amanda for years, and I'm very happy with it.
>

> http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.__php/Zmanda_Windows_Client

[rick benkstein]

This seems very relevant to my January presentation on rsync.

Rick Benkstein

[Tom]

We do it with Backup Exec and also Sympana. In
both cases we run an agent on linux and windows
machines (Netware too, I think) and back up to a Windows machine.

But couldn't you create a big Samba share on a
linux machine and run GrSync or one of the other
rsync clones for Windows? Or even Windows Backup?

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[Brian Oswald]

How about mounting the Windows share on the Linux box. You could do this via fstab, or command line, and include credentials as part of that command. From that point out, the Linux box should be able to access the files as normal. Unless I am missing something, which is possible.

Brian
---

[Erik Rasmussen]

Brian, I like that idea.  I'm trying to mount the windows 2003 R2 share on the linux (ubuntu-based) machine but I must not have the syntax or something right.

Can anyone help advise what I'm doing wrong?

in the terminal I type:

sudo mount -t cifs //windowsservername/c$ /mnt -ouser=windowsusername,password='windowspassword'

it returns:

mount: wrong fs type, bad options, bad superblock on //server/c$, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.....(and it goes on)

Also tried:

sudo mount -t cifs //windowsservername/sharename /mnt -ouser=windowsusername,password='windowspassword'
it returns same kind of message as above.

Can anyone advise how to mount the Windows Server 2003 R2 (and Windows Server 2008 R2--if it makes a difference) on the linux machine?

[Erik Rasmussen]

Still trying to figure out the syntax...

Got this far, but now getting the below error...

sudo mount -t cifs //windowsserver/windowsshare/ /dev/sdb1/linuxfolder/subfolder -ouser=windowsuser,password='windowspassword'

mount: mount point /dev/sdb1/linuxfolder/subfolder is not a directory

Can anyone see what I have wrong?

[Dale Noll]

Erik,

A couple of things to suggest.

The path of '/dev/sdb1/linuxfolder/subfolder' is probably not what you want.  That says to me, it is directly related to a hard drive.  Your earlier example of '/mnt' was more appropriate.  If this is a long term thing, you should create the directory structure you want such as 'mkdir -p /windows/sharename' and mount to that.

You may, once you get the mount working, want to look at the uid=,gid= options as well.  These will map all the windows files to a userid other than root.

Good luck.

Dale

[Chad Voelker]

Erik-

Below is what I use in my fstab. I can then mount it as a standard user as long as /media/myserver has been created and chown'd to the local user that's doing the mounting ("mount /media/myserver" at a prompt, or just click on it in nautilus file manager):

//myserver/share/ /media/myserver cifs rw,user,noauto,mand,nosuid,nodev,user=MY_SAMBA_SHARE_USERNAME,password=MY_SAMBA_SHARE_PASSWORD 0 0

Also make sure that cifs-utils has been installed.

Hope that helps!
-Chad

[Tom]

You can't mount it to a device. Create a directory, like /mnt/c_dollar

Then try something along the lines of:

sudo mount -t cifs //windowsserver/windowsshare/ /mnt/c_doller

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