8 Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Craig Barratt. All rights reserved.
10 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
11 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
17 The latest version of BackupPC can be fetched from:
19 http://backuppc.sourceforge.net
21 If you will use SMB for WinXX clients, you will need smbclient and
22 nmblookup from the Samba distribution. Version >= 2.2.0 of Samba is
23 recommended (smbclient's tar feature in 2.0.7 has bugs for certain
24 path lengths). See www.samba.org for source and binaries.
26 To install BackupPC run these commands as root:
28 tar zxf BackupPC-__VERSION__.tar.gz
29 cd BackupPC-__VERSION__
32 This will automatically determine some system information and prompt you
38 BackupPC is a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for
39 backing up Linux and WinXX PCs and laptops to a server's disk.
40 BackupPC is highly configurable and easy to install and maintain.
42 Given the ever decreasing cost of disks and raid systems, it is now
43 practical and cost effective to backup a large number of machines onto
44 a server's local disk or network storage. This is what BackupPC does.
45 For some sites, this might be the complete backup solution. For other
46 sites, additional permanent archives could be created by periodically
47 backing up the server to tape. A variety of Open Source systems are
48 available for doing backup to tape.
50 BackupPC is written in Perl and extracts backup data either via
51 SMB (using Samba) or tar over ssh/rsh/nfs. It is robust, reliable,
52 well documented and freely available as Open Source on SourceForge.
57 - A clever pooling scheme minimizes disk storage and disk IO. Identical
58 files across multiple backups of the same or different PCs are stored
59 only once resulting in substantial savings in disk storage.
61 - One example of disk use: 95 latops with each full backup averaging
62 3.6GB each, and each incremental averaging about 0.3GB. Storing
63 three weekly full backups and six incremental backups per laptop
64 is around 1200GB of raw data, but because of pooling and compression
67 - No client-side software is needed. The standard smb protocol is used
68 to extract backup data on WinXX clients. On linux clients, tar
69 over ssh/rsh/nfs is used to backup the data (or alternatively
70 Samba can be installed on the linux client to provide smb shares).
72 - A powerful http/cgi user interface allows administrators to view log
73 files, configuration, current status and allows users to initiate and
74 cancel backups and browse and restore files from backups.
76 - Flexible restore options. Single files can be downloaded from
77 any backup directly from the CGI interface. Zip or Tar archives
78 for selected files or directories from any backup can also be
79 downloaded from the CGI interface. Finally, direct restore to
80 the client machine (using SMB or tar) for selected files or
81 directories is also supported from the CGI interface.
83 - Supports mobile environments where laptops are only intermittently
84 connected to the network and have dynamic IP addresses (DHCP).
86 - Flexible configuration parameters allow multiple backups to be performed
87 in parallel, specification of which shares to backup, which directories
88 to backup or not backup, various schedules for full and incremental
89 backups, schedules for email reminders to users and so on. Configuration
90 parameters can be set system-wide or also on a per-PC basis.
92 - Users are sent periodic email reminders if their PC has not
93 recently been backed up. Email content, timing and policies
96 - Tested on Linux and Solaris hosts, and Linux, Win95, Win98, Win2000
99 - Detailed documentation.
101 - Open Source hosted by SourceForge and freely available under GPL.
106 Complete documentation is available in this release in doc/BackupPC.pod
107 or doc/BackupPC.html. You can read doc/BackupPC.pod with perldoc and
108 doc/BackupPC.html with any browser. You can also see the documentation
109 and general information at:
111 http://backuppc.sourceforge.net
113 The SourceForge project resides at:
115 http://sourceforge.net/projects/backuppc
117 You are encouraged to subscribe to either the backuppc-announce
118 or backuppc-users mail list on sourceforge.net at either:
120 http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-announce
121 http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
123 The backuppc-announce list is moderated and is used only for
124 important announcements (eg: new versions). It is low traffic.
125 You only need to subscribe to one list: backuppc-users also
126 receives any messages on backuppc-announce.
128 To post a message to the backuppc-users list, send an email to
130 backuppc-users@lists.sourceforge.net
132 Do not send subscription requests to this address!