Software for backups: Windows: Samba?

Sun Oct 26 08:42:22 PST 2003

It's been a busy week. I'm not sure where this thread started.

However, if I grasped the central concept correctly, the question was 
how to back up a slew of Windows boxes, cheaply.

My vote would go for installing a Samba server.

Most people just install the server, configure the shares and forget it.

But when you install Samba, it comes with a slew of command-line 
utilities which can be used to, for instance, remotely mount Windows 
shares on the Samba server, instead.

It seems to me that with the correct combination of restrictions, that 
one could hypothetically share one's entire C: drive, mount it via a 
Samba command line utility, and then syphon the contents of the C: drive 
onto a local UNIX filesystem, or directly to a local tape drive.

A quick `man -k smb | awk ' { print $1 }'` returns the following, on my 
home Samba server:

findsmb(1)
ichsmb(4)
iicsmb(4)
make_smbcodepage(1)
mount_smbfs(8)
samba(7),
smb(4)
smb.conf(5)
smbcacls(1)
smbclient(1)
smbcontrol(1)
smbd(8)
smbmnt(8)
smbmount(8)
smbpasswd(5)
smbpasswd(8)
smbsh(1)
smbspool(8)
smbstatus(1)
smbtar(1)
smbumount(8)
smbus(4)
smbutil(1)
testparm(1)
testprns(1)

Obviously not all of these are Samba-related; however, in just a casual 
perusal of the results, I see some intriguing leads ...

- findsmb(1) sounds like a great tool for auditing networks to insure 
that everyone on the network is receiving the benefits of the Samba 
server's automated backup mechanisms.

- mount_smbfs(8) looks like an easy path to mapping remote Windows 
directories and files to local UNIX pathnames, for backup purposes.

- smbcacls(1) might be usable to restrict access.

- smbclient(1) is a command-line interface that can do a lot of useful 
things, like remotely copy files, if I recall correctly.

- smbcontrol(1), smbsh(1), smbutil(1) and especially smbtar(1) are good 
candidates for use in a Windows-centric backup mechanism, too.

The best thing about such a backup mechanism is that it could be 
self-serve, IE, if you erased a file accidentally, you can easily 
recover it, yourself, by browsing the Samba server and copying it off of 
previous backups. No UNIX administrator needed.

Food for thought.

Of course, if someone needs this built for them, we're available and 
interested !!

-- richard

Richard Childers / Senior Engineer
Daemonized Networking Services
https://www.daemonized.com
(415) 759-5571