1=encoding ISO8859-1 2 3=head1 BackupPC Introduction 4 5This documentation describes BackupPC version 3.3.2, 6released on 25 Jan 2017. 7 8=head2 Overview 9 10BackupPC is a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up 11Unix, Linux, WinXX, and MacOSX PCs, desktops and laptops to a server's 12disk. BackupPC is highly configurable and easy to install and maintain. 13 14Given the ever decreasing cost of disks and raid systems, it is now 15practical and cost effective to backup a large number of machines onto 16a server's local disk or network storage. For some sites this might be 17the complete backup solution. For other sites additional permanent 18archives could be created by periodically backing up the server to tape. 19 20Features include: 21 22=over 4 23 24=item * 25 26A clever pooling scheme minimizes disk storage and disk I/O. 27Identical files across multiple backups of the same or different PC 28are stored only once (using hard links), resulting in substantial 29savings in disk storage and disk writes. 30 31=item * 32 33Optional compression provides additional reductions in storage 34(around 40%). The CPU impact of compression is low since only 35new files (those not already in the pool) need to be compressed. 36 37=item * 38 39A powerful http/cgi user interface allows administrators to view 40the current status, edit configuration, add/delete hosts, view log 41files, and allows users to initiate and cancel backups and browse 42and restore files from backups. 43 44=item * 45 46The http/cgi user interface has internationalization (i18n) support, 47currently providing English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, 48Dutch, Polish, Portuguese-Brazilian and Chinese 49 50=item * 51 52No client-side software is needed. On WinXX the standard smb 53protocol is used to extract backup data. On linux, unix or MacOSX 54clients, rsync, tar (over ssh/rsh/nfs) or ftp is used to extract 55backup data. Alternatively, rsync can also be used on WinXX (using 56cygwin), and Samba could be installed on the linux or unix client 57to provide smb shares). 58 59=item * 60 61Flexible restore options. Single files can be downloaded from 62any backup directly from the CGI interface. Zip or Tar archives 63for selected files or directories from any backup can also be 64downloaded from the CGI interface. Finally, direct restore to 65the client machine (using smb or tar) for selected files or 66directories is also supported from the CGI interface. 67 68=item * 69 70BackupPC supports mobile environments where laptops are only 71intermittently connected to the network and have dynamic IP addresses 72(DHCP). Configuration settings allow machines connected via slower WAN 73connections (eg: dial up, DSL, cable) to not be backed up, even if they 74use the same fixed or dynamic IP address as when they are connected 75directly to the LAN. 76 77=item * 78 79Flexible configuration parameters allow multiple backups to be performed 80in parallel, specification of which shares to backup, which directories 81to backup or not backup, various schedules for full and incremental 82backups, schedules for email reminders to users and so on. Configuration 83parameters can be set system-wide or also on a per-PC basis. 84 85=item * 86 87Users are sent periodic email reminders if their PC has not 88recently been backed up. Email content, timing and policies 89are configurable. 90 91=item * 92 93BackupPC is Open Source software hosted by SourceForge. 94 95=back 96 97=head2 Backup basics 98 99=over 4 100 101=item Full Backup 102 103A full backup is a complete backup of a share. BackupPC can be 104configured to do a full backup at a regular interval (typically 105weekly). BackupPC can be configured to keep a certain number 106of full backups. Exponential expiry is also supported, allowing 107full backups with various vintages to be kept (for example, a 108settable number of most recent weekly fulls, plus a settable 109number of older fulls that are 2, 4, 8, or 16 weeks apart). 110 111=item Incremental Backup 112 113An incremental backup is a backup of files that have changed 114since the last successful full or incremental backup. Starting 115in BackupPC 3.0 multi-level incrementals are supported. 116A full backup has level 0. A new incremental of level N will 117backup all files that have changed since the most recent backup 118of a lower level. $Conf{IncrLevels} is used to specify the 119level of each successive incremental. The default value is 120all level 1, which makes the behavior the same as earlier 121versions of BackupPC: each incremental will back up all the 122files that changed since the last full (level 0). 123 124For SMB and tar, BackupPC uses the modification time (mtime) to 125determine which files have changed since the last lower-level 126backup. That means SMB and tar incrementals are not able to detect 127deleted files, renamed files or new files whose modification time 128is prior to the last lower-level backup. 129 130Rsync is more clever: any files whose attributes have changed (ie: uid, 131gid, mtime, modes, size) since the last full are backed up. Deleted, 132new files and renamed files are detected by Rsync incrementals. 133 134BackupPC can also be configured to keep a certain number of incremental 135backups, and to keep a smaller number of very old incremental backups. 136If multi-level incrementals are specified then it is likely that 137more incrementals will need to be kept since lower-level incrementals 138(and the full backup) are needed to reconstruct a higher-level 139incremental. 140 141BackupPC "fills-in" incremental backups when browsing or restoring, 142based on the levels of each backup, giving every backup a "full" 143appearance. This makes browsing and restoring backups much easier: 144you can restore from any one backup independent of whether it was 145an incremental or full. 146 147=item Partial Backup 148 149When a full backup fails or is canceled, and some files have already 150been backed up, BackupPC keeps a partial backup containing just the 151files that were backed up successfully. The partial backup is removed 152when the next successful backup completes, or if another full backup 153fails resulting in a newer partial backup. A failed full backup 154that has not backed up any files, or any failed incremental backup, 155is removed; no partial backup is saved in these cases. 156 157The partial backup may be browsed or used to restore files just like 158a successful full or incremental backup. 159 160With the rsync transfer method the partial backup is used to resume 161the next full backup, avoiding the need to retransfer the file data 162already in the partial backup. 163 164=item Identical Files 165 166BackupPC pools identical files using hardlinks. By "identical 167files" we mean files with identical contents, not necessary the 168same permissions, ownership or modification time. Two files might 169have different permissions, ownership, or modification time but 170will still be pooled whenever the contents are identical. This 171is possible since BackupPC stores the file meta-data (permissions, 172ownership, and modification time) separately from the file contents. 173 174=item Backup Policy 175 176Based on your site's requirements you need to decide what your backup 177policy is. BackupPC is not designed to provide exact re-imaging of 178failed disks. See L<Some Limitations> for more information. 179However, the addition of tar transport for linux/unix clients, plus 180full support for special file types and unix attributes in v1.4.0 181likely means an exact image of a linux/unix file system can be made. 182 183BackupPC saves backups onto disk. Because of pooling you can relatively 184economically keep several weeks of old backups. 185 186At some sites the disk-based backup will be adequate, without a 187secondary tape backup. This system is robust to any single failure: if a 188client disk fails or loses files, the BackupPC server can be used to 189restore files. If the server disk fails, BackupPC can be restarted on a 190fresh file system, and create new backups from the clients. The chance 191of the server disk failing can be made very small by spending more money 192on increasingly better RAID systems. However, there is still the risk 193of catastrophic events like fires or earthquakes that can destroy 194both the BackupPC server and the clients it is backing up if they 195are physically nearby. 196 197Some sites might choose to do periodic backups to tape or cd/dvd. 198This backup can be done perhaps weekly using the archive function of 199BackupPC. 200 201Other users have reported success with removable disks to rotate the 202BackupPC data drives, or using rsync to mirror the BackupPC data pool 203offsite. 204 205=back 206 207=head2 Resources 208 209=over 4 210 211=item BackupPC home page 212 213The BackupPC Open Source project is hosted on Github and SourceForge. 214The project home page can be found at: 215 216 http://backuppc.sourceforge.net 217 218This page has links to the current documentation, the Github and SourceForge 219project pages and general information. 220 221=item Github and SourceForge locations 222 223The Github project page is at: 224 225 https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc 226 227The SourceForge project page is at: 228 229 http://sourceforge.net/projects/backuppc 230 231Generally use of SourceForge has been deprecated in favor of Github. All source 232code and development has moved to Github starting in 2016. Releases will continue 233to be available on both Github and SourceForge. 234 235This page has links to the current releases of BackupPC. 236 237=item BackupPC Wiki 238 239BackupPC has a Wiki at L<https://github.com/backuppc/backuppc/wiki>. 240Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the Wiki. 241 242=item Mailing lists 243 244Three BackupPC mailing lists exist for announcements (backuppc-announce), 245developers (backuppc-devel), and a general user list for support, asking 246questions or any other topic relevant to BackupPC (backuppc-users). 247 248The lists are archived on SourceForge and Gmane. The SourceForge lists 249are not always up to date and the searching is limited, so Gmane is 250a good alternative. See: 251 252 http://news.gmane.org/index.php?prefix=gmane.comp.sysutils.backup.backuppc 253 http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=backuppc-users 254 255You can subscribe to these lists by visiting: 256 257 http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-announce 258 http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users 259 http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-devel 260 261The backuppc-announce list is moderated and is used only for 262important announcements (eg: new versions). It is low traffic. 263You only need to subscribe to one of backuppc-announce and 264backuppc-users: backuppc-users also receives any messages on 265backuppc-announce. 266 267The backuppc-devel list is only for developers who are working on BackupPC. 268Do not post questions or support requests there. But detailed technical 269discussions should happen on this list. 270 271To post a message to the backuppc-users list, send an email to 272 273 backuppc-users@lists.sourceforge.net 274 275Do not send subscription requests to this address! 276 277=item Other Programs of Interest 278 279If you want to mirror linux or unix files or directories to a remote server 280you should use rsync, L<http://rsync.samba.org>. BackupPC uses 281rsync as a transport mechanism; if you are already an rsync user you 282can think of BackupPC as adding efficient storage (compression and 283pooling) and a convenient user interface to rsync. 284 285Two popular open source packages that do tape backup are 286Amanda (L<http://www.amanda.org>) 287and Bacula (L<http://www.bacula.org>). 288These packages can be used as complete solutions, or also as back 289ends to BackupPC to backup the BackupPC server data to tape. 290 291Various programs and scripts use rsync to provide hardlinked backups. 292See, for example, Mike Rubel's site (L<http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots>), 293JW Schultz's dirvish (L<http://www.dirvish.org/>), 294Ben Escoto's rdiff-backup (L<http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup>), 295and John Bowman's rlbackup (L<http://www.math.ualberta.ca/imaging/rlbackup>). 296 297Unison is a utility that can do two-way, interactive, synchronization. 298See L<http://freshmeat.net/projects/unison>. An external wrapper around 299rsync that maintains transfer data to enable two-way synchronization is 300drsync; see L<http://freshmeat.net/projects/drsync>. 301 302BackupPC provides many additional features, such as compressed storage, 303hardlinking any matching files (rather than just files with the same name), 304and storing special files without root privileges. But these other programs 305provide simple, effective and fast solutions and are definitely worthy of 306consideration. 307 308=back 309 310=head2 Road map 311 312The new features planned for future releases of BackupPC 313are on the Wiki at L<http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net>. 314 315Comments and suggestions are welcome. 316 317=head2 You can help 318 319BackupPC is free. I work on BackupPC because I enjoy doing it and I like 320to contribute to the open source community. 321 322BackupPC already has more than enough features for my own needs. The 323main compensation for continuing to work on BackupPC is knowing that 324more and more people find it useful. So feedback is certainly 325appreciated, both positive and negative. 326 327Beyond being a satisfied user and telling other people about it, everyone 328is encouraged to add links to L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net> 329(I'll see them via Google) or otherwise publicize BackupPC. Unlike 330the commercial products in this space, I have a zero budget (in both 331time and money) for marketing, PR and advertising, so it's up to 332all of you! Feel free to vote for BackupPC at 333L<http://freshmeat.net/projects/backuppc>. 334 335Also, everyone is encouraged to contribute patches, bug reports, 336feature and design suggestions, new code, Wiki additions (you can 337do those directly) and documentation corrections or improvements. 338Answering questions on the mailing list is a big help too. 339 340=head1 Installing BackupPC 341 342=head2 Requirements 343 344BackupPC requires: 345 346=over 4 347 348=item * 349 350A linux, solaris, or unix based server with a substantial amount of free 351disk space (see the next section for what that means). The CPU and disk 352performance on this server will determine how many simultaneous backups 353you can run. You should be able to run 4-8 simultaneous backups on a 354moderately configured server. 355 356Several users have reported significantly better performance using 357reiserfs compared to ext3 for the BackupPC data file system. It is 358also recommended you consider either an LVM or RAID setup (either 359in HW or SW; eg: 3Ware RAID10 or RAID5) so that you can expand the 360file system as necessary. 361 362When BackupPC starts with an empty pool, all the backup data will be 363written to the pool on disk. After more backups are done, a higher 364percentage of incoming files will already be in the pool. BackupPC is 365able to avoid writing to disk new files that are already in the pool. 366So over time disk writes will reduce significantly (by perhaps a factor 367of 20 or more), since eventually 95% or more of incoming backup files 368are typically in the pool. Disk reads from the pool are still needed to 369do file compares to verify files are an exact match. So, with a mature 370pool, if a relatively fast client generates data at say 1MB/sec, and you 371run 4 simultaneous backups, there will be an average server disk load of 372about 4MB/sec reads and 0.2MB/sec writes (assuming 95% of the incoming 373files are in the pool). These rates will be perhaps 40% lower if 374compression is on. 375 376=item * 377 378Perl version 5.8.0 or later. If you don't have perl, please 379see L<http://www.cpan.org>. 380 381=item * 382 383Perl modules Compress::Zlib, Archive::Zip and File::RsyncP. Try "perldoc 384Compress::Zlib" and "perldoc Archive::Zip" to see if you have these 385modules. If not, fetch them from L<http://www.cpan.org> and see the 386instructions below for how to build and install them. 387 388The CGI Perl module is required for the http/cgi user interface. CGI was a core 389module, but from version 5.22 Perl no longer ships with it. 390 391The File::RsyncP module is available from L<http://perlrsync.sourceforge.net> 392or CPAN. You'll need to install the File::RsyncP module if you want to use 393Rsync as a transport method. 394 395=item * 396 397If you are using smb to backup WinXX machines you need smbclient and 398nmblookup from the samba package. You will also need nmblookup if 399you are backing up linux/unix DHCP machines. See L<http://www.samba.org>. 400Samba versions 3.x are stable and now recommended instead of 2.x. 401 402See L<http://www.samba.org> for source and binaries. It's pretty easy to 403fetch and compile samba, and just grab smbclient and nmblookup, without 404doing the installation. Alternatively, L<http://www.samba.org> has binary 405distributions for most platforms. 406 407=item * 408 409If you are using tar to backup linux/unix machines, those machines should have 410version 1.13.7 at a minimum, with version 1.13.20 or higher recommended. Use 411"tar --version" to check your version. Various GNU mirrors have the newest 412versions of tar; see L<http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/>. 413 414=item * 415 416If you are using rsync to backup linux/unix machines you should have 417version 2.6.3 or higher on each client machine. See 418L<http://rsync.samba.org>. Use "rsync --version" to check your version. 419 420For BackupPC to use Rsync you will also need to install the perl 421File::RsyncP module, which is available from 422L<http://perlrsync.sourceforge.net>. 423Version 0.68 or later is required. 424 425=item * 426 427The Apache web server, see L<http://www.apache.org>, preferably built 428with mod_perl support. 429 430=back 431 432=head2 What type of storage space do I need? 433 434BackupPC uses hardlinks to pool files common to different backups. 435Therefore BackupPC's data store (__TOPDIR__) must point to a single 436file system that supports hardlinks. You cannot split this file 437system with multiple mount points or using symbolic links to point a 438sub-directory to a different file system (it is ok to use a single 439symbolic link at the top-level directory (__TOPDIR__) to point the 440entire data store somewhere else). You can of course use any kind of 441RAID system or logical volume manager that combines the capacity of 442multiple disks into a single, larger, file system. Such approaches 443have the advantage that the file system can be expanded without having 444to copy it. 445 446Any standard linux or unix file system supports hardlinks. NFS mounted 447file systems work too (provided the underlying file system supports 448hardlinks). But windows based FAT and NTFS file systems will not work. 449 450Starting with BackupPC 3.1.0, run-time checks are done at startup and 451at the start of each backup to ensure that the file system can support 452hardlinks, since this is a common area of configuration problems. 453 454=head2 How much disk space do I need? 455 456Here's one real example for an environment that is backing up 65 laptops 457with compression off. Each full backup averages 3.2GB. Each incremental 458backup averages about 0.2GB. Storing one full backup and two incremental 459backups per laptop is around 240GB of raw data. But because of the 460pooling of identical files, only 87GB is used. This is without 461compression. 462 463Another example, with compression on: backing up 95 laptops, where 464each backup averages 3.6GB and each incremental averages about 0.3GB. 465Keeping three weekly full backups, and six incrementals is around 4661200GB of raw data. Because of pooling and compression, only 150GB 467is needed. 468 469Here's a rule of thumb. Add up the disk usage of all the machines you 470want to backup (210GB in the first example above). This is a rough 471minimum space estimate that should allow a couple of full backups and at 472least half a dozen incremental backups per machine. If compression is on 473you can reduce the storage requirements by maybe 30-40%. Add some margin 474in case you add more machines or decide to keep more old backups. 475 476Your actual mileage will depend upon the types of clients, operating 477systems and applications you have. The more uniform the clients and 478applications the bigger the benefit from pooling common files. 479 480For example, the Eudora email tool stores each mail folder in a separate 481file, and attachments are extracted as separate files. So in the sadly 482common case of a large attachment emailed to many recipients, Eudora 483will extract the attachment into a new file. When these machines are 484backed up, only one copy of the file will be stored on the server, even 485though the file appears in many different full or incremental backups. In 486this sense Eudora is a "friendly" application from the point of view of 487backup storage requirements. 488 489An example at the other end of the spectrum is Outlook. Everything 490(email bodies, attachments, calendar, contact lists) is stored in a 491single file, which often becomes huge. Any change to this file requires 492a separate copy of the file to be saved during backup. Outlook is even 493more troublesome, since it keeps this file locked all the time, so it 494cannot be read by smbclient whenever Outlook is running. See the 495L<Some Limitations> section for more discussion of this problem. 496 497In addition to total disk space, you should make sure you have 498plenty of inodes on your BackupPC data partition. Some users have 499reported running out of inodes on their BackupPC data partition. 500So even if you have plenty of disk space, BackupPC will report 501failures when the inodes are exhausted. This is a particular 502problem with ext2/ext3 file systems that have a fixed number of 503inodes when the file system is built. Use "df -i" to see your 504inode usage. 505 506=head2 Step 1: Getting BackupPC 507 508Some linux distributions now include BackupPC. The Debian 509distribution, supported by Ludovic Drolez, can be found at 510L<http://packages.debian.org/backuppc> and is included 511in the current stable Debian release. On Debian, BackupPC can 512be installed with the command: 513 514 apt-get install backuppc 515 516In the future there might be packages for Gentoo and other 517linux flavors. If the packaged version is older than the 518released version then you may want to install the 519latest version as described below. 520 521Otherwise, manually fetching and installing BackupPC is easy. 522Start by downloading the latest version from 523L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net>. Hit the "Code" button, 524then select the "backuppc" or "backuppc-beta" package and 525download the latest version. 526 527=head2 Step 2: Installing the distribution 528 529Note: most information in this step is only relevant if you build 530and install BackupPC yourself. If you use a package provided by a 531distribution, the package management system should take of installing 532any needed dependencies. 533 534First off, there are five perl modules you should install. 535These are all optional, but highly recommended: 536 537=over 4 538 539=item Compress::Zlib 540 541To enable compression, you will need to install Compress::Zlib 542from L<http://www.cpan.org>. 543You can run "perldoc Compress::Zlib" to see if this module is installed. 544 545=item Archive::Zip 546 547To support restore via Zip archives you will need to install 548Archive::Zip, also from L<http://www.cpan.org>. 549You can run "perldoc Archive::Zip" to see if this module is installed. 550 551=item XML::RSS 552 553To support the RSS feature you will need to install XML::RSS, also from 554L<http://www.cpan.org>. There is not need to install this module if you 555don't plan on using RSS. You can run "perldoc XML::RSS" to see if this 556module is installed. 557 558=item File::RsyncP 559 560To use rsync and rsyncd with BackupPC you will need to install File::RsyncP. 561You can run "perldoc File::RsyncP" to see if this module is installed. 562File::RsyncP is available from L<http://perlrsync.sourceforge.net>. 563Version 0.68 or later is required. 564 565=item File::Listing, Net::FTP, Net::FTP::RetrHandle, Net::FTP::AutoReconnect 566 567To use ftp with BackupPC you will need four libraries, but actually 568need to install only File::Listing from L<http://www.cpan.org>. 569You can run "perldoc File::Listing" to see if this module is installed. 570Net::FTP is a standard module. Net::FTP::RetrHandle and 571Net::FTP::AutoReconnect included in BackupPC distribution. 572 573=back 574 575To build and install these packages you should use the cpan program. 576Alternatively, you can fetch the tar.gz file from L<http://www.cpan.org> 577and then run these commands: 578 579 tar zxvf Archive-Zip-1.26.tar.gz 580 cd Archive-Zip-1.26 581 perl Makefile.PL 582 make 583 make test 584 make install 585 586The same sequence of commands can be used for each module. 587 588Now let's move onto BackupPC itself. After fetching 589BackupPC-3.3.2.tar.gz, run these commands as root: 590 591 tar zxf BackupPC-3.3.2.tar.gz 592 cd BackupPC-3.3.2 593 perl configure.pl 594 595In the future this release might also have patches available on the 596SourceForge site. These patch files are text files, with a name of 597the form 598 599 BackupPC-3.3.2plN.diff 600 601where N is the patch level, eg: pl2 is patch-level 2. These 602patch files are cumulative: you only need apply the last patch 603file, not all the earlier patch files. If a patch file is 604available, eg: BackupPC-3.3.2pl2.diff, you should apply 605the patch after extracting the tar file: 606 607 # fetch BackupPC-3.3.2.tar.gz 608 # fetch BackupPC-3.3.2pl2.diff 609 tar zxf BackupPC-3.3.2.tar.gz 610 cd BackupPC-3.3.2 611 patch -p0 < ../BackupPC-3.3.2pl2.diff 612 perl configure.pl 613 614A patch file includes comments that describe that bug fixes 615and changes. Feel free to review it before you apply the patch. 616 617The configure.pl script also accepts command-line options if you 618wish to run it in a non-interactive manner. It has self-contained 619documentation for all the command-line options, which you can 620read with perldoc: 621 622 perldoc configure.pl 623 624Starting with BackupPC 3.0.0, the configure.pl script by default 625complies with the file system hierarchy (FHS) conventions. The 626major difference compared to earlier versions is that by default 627configuration files will be stored in /etc/BackupPC 628rather than below the data directory, __TOPDIR__/conf, 629and the log files will be stored in /var/log/BackupPC 630rather than below the data directory, __TOPDIR__/log. 631 632Note that distributions may choose to use different locations for 633BackupPC files than these defaults. 634 635If you are upgrading from an earlier version the configure.pl script 636will keep the configuration files and log files in their original 637location. 638 639When you run configure.pl you will be prompted for the full paths 640of various executables, and you will be prompted for the following 641information. 642 643=over 4 644 645=item BackupPC User 646 647It is best if BackupPC runs as a special user, eg backuppc, that has 648limited privileges. It is preferred that backuppc belongs to a system 649administrator group so that sys admin members can browse BackupPC files, 650edit the configuration files and so on. Although configurable, the 651default settings leave group read permission on pool files, so make 652sure the BackupPC user's group is chosen restrictively. 653 654On this installation, this is __BACKUPPCUSER__. 655 656For security purposes you might choose to configure the BackupPC 657user with the shell set to /bin/false. Since you might need to 658run some BackupPC programs as the BackupPC user for testing 659purposes, you can use the -m option to su to run 660a shell, eg: 661 662 su -m __BACKUPPCUSER__ 663 664Depending upon your configuration you might also need the -l option. 665 666=item Data Directory 667 668You need to decide where to put the data directory, below which 669all the BackupPC data is stored. This needs to be a big file system. 670 671On this installation, this is __TOPDIR__. 672 673=item Install Directory 674 675You should decide where the BackupPC scripts, libraries and documentation 676should be installed, eg: /usr/local/BackupPC. 677 678On this installation, this is __INSTALLDIR__. 679 680=item CGI bin Directory 681 682You should decide where the BackupPC CGI script resides. This will 683usually be below Apache's cgi-bin directory. 684 685It is also possible to use a different directory and use Apache's 686``<Directory>'' directive to specifiy that location. See the Apache 687HTTP Server documentation for additional information. 688 689On this installation, this is __CGIDIR__. 690 691=item Apache image Directory 692 693A directory where BackupPC's images are stored so that Apache can 694serve them. You should ensure this directory is readable by Apache and 695create a symlink to this directory from the BackupPC CGI bin Directory. 696 697=item Config and Log Directories 698 699In this installation the configuration and log directories are 700located in the following locations: 701 702 __CONFDIR__/config.pl main config file 703 __CONFDIR__/hosts hosts file 704 __CONFDIR__/pc/HOST.pl per-pc config file 705 __LOGDIR__/BackupPC log files, pid, status 706 707The configure.pl script doesn't prompt for these locations but 708they can be set for new installations using command-line options. 709 710=back 711 712=head2 Step 3: Setting up config.pl 713 714After running configure.pl, browse through the config file, 715__CONFDIR__/config.pl, and make sure all the default settings are 716correct. In particular, you will need to decide whether to use 717smb, tar,or rsync or ftp transport (or whether to set it on a 718per-PC basis) and set the relevant parameters for that transport 719method. See the section L<Step 5: Client Setup> for 720more details. 721 722=head2 Step 4: Setting up the hosts file 723 724The file __CONFDIR__/hosts contains the list of clients to backup. 725BackupPC reads this file in three cases: 726 727=over 4 728 729=item * 730 731Upon startup. 732 733=item * 734 735When BackupPC is sent a HUP (-1) signal. Assuming you installed the 736init.d script, you can also do this with "/etc/init.d/backuppc reload". 737 738=item * 739 740When the modification time of the hosts file changes. BackupPC 741checks the modification time once during each regular wakeup. 742 743=back 744 745Whenever you change the hosts file (to add or remove a host) you can 746either do a kill -HUP BackupPC_pid or simply wait until the next regular 747wakeup period. 748 749Each line in the hosts file contains three fields, separated 750by white space: 751 752=over 4 753 754=item Host name 755 756This is typically the host name or NetBios name of the client machine 757and should be in lower case. The host name can contain spaces (escape 758with a backslash), but it is not recommended. 759 760Please read the section L<How BackupPC Finds Hosts>. 761 762In certain cases you might want several distinct clients to refer 763to the same physical machine. For example, you might have a database 764you want to backup, and you want to bracket the backup of the database 765with shutdown/restart using $Conf{DumpPreUserCmd} and $Conf{DumpPostUserCmd}. 766But you also want to backup the rest of the machine while the database 767is still running. In the case you can specify two different clients in 768the host file, using any mnemonic name (eg: myhost_mysql and myhost), and 769use $Conf{ClientNameAlias} in myhost_mysql's config.pl to specify the 770real host name of the machine. 771 772=item DHCP flag 773 774Starting with v2.0.0 the way hosts are discovered has changed and now 775in most cases you should specify 0 for the DHCP flag, even if the host 776has a dynamically assigned IP address. 777Please read the section L<How BackupPC Finds Hosts> 778to understand whether you need to set the DHCP flag. 779 780You only need to set DHCP to 1 if your client machine doesn't 781respond to the NetBios multicast request: 782 783 nmblookup myHost 784 785but does respond to a request directed to its IP address: 786 787 nmblookup -A W.X.Y.Z 788 789If you do set DHCP to 1 on any client you will need to specify the range of 790DHCP addresses to search is specified in $Conf{DHCPAddressRanges}. 791 792Note also that the $Conf{ClientNameAlias} feature does not work for 793clients with DHCP set to 1. 794 795=item User name 796 797This should be the unix login/email name of the user who "owns" or uses 798this machine. This is the user who will be sent email about this 799machine, and this user will have permission to stop/start/browse/restore 800backups for this host. Leave this blank if no specific person should 801receive email or be allowed to stop/start/browse/restore backups 802for this host. Administrators will still have full permissions. 803 804=item More users 805 806Additional user names, separate by commas and with no white space, 807can be specified. These users will also have full permission in 808the CGI interface to stop/start/browse/restore backups for this host. 809These users will not be sent email about this host. 810 811=back 812 813The first non-comment line of the hosts file is special: it contains 814the names of the columns and should not be edited. 815 816Here's a simple example of a hosts file: 817 818 host dhcp user moreUsers 819 farside 0 craig jim,dave 820 larson 1 gary andy 821 822=head2 Step 5: Client Setup 823 824Four methods for getting backup data from a client are supported: 825smb, tar, rsync and ftp. Smb or rsync are the preferred methods 826for WinXX clients and rsync or tar are the preferred methods for 827linux/unix/MacOSX clients. 828 829The transfer method is set using the $Conf{XferMethod} configuration 830setting. If you have a mixed environment (ie: you will use smb for some 831clients and tar for others), you will need to pick the most common 832choice for $Conf{XferMethod} for the main config.pl file, and then 833override it in the per-PC config file for those hosts that will use 834the other method. (Or you could run two completely separate instances 835of BackupPC, with different data directories, one for WinXX and the 836other for linux/unix, but then common files between the different 837machine types will duplicated.) 838 839Here are some brief client setup notes: 840 841=over 4 842 843=item WinXX 844 845One setup for WinXX clients is to set $Conf{XferMethod} to "smb". 846Actually, rsyncd is the better method for WinXX if you are prepared to 847run rsync/cygwin on your WinXX client. 848 849If you want to use rsyncd for WinXX clients you can find a pre-packaged 850zip file on L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net>. The package is called 851cygwin-rsync. It contains rsync.exe, template setup files and the 852minimal set of cygwin libraries for everything to run. The README file 853contains instructions for running rsync as a service, so it starts 854automatically everytime you boot your machine. If you use rsync 855to backup WinXX machines, be sure to set $Conf{ClientCharset} 856correctly (eg: 'cp1252') so that the WinXX file name encoding is 857correctly converted to utf8. 858 859Otherwise, to use SMB, you can either create shares for the data you want 860to backup or your can use the existing C$ share. To create a new 861share, open "My Computer", right click on the drive (eg: C), and 862select "Sharing..." (or select "Properties" and select the "Sharing" 863tab). In this dialog box you can enable sharing, select the share name 864and permissions. 865 866All Windows NT based OS (NT, 2000, XP Pro), are configured by default 867to share the entire C drive as C$. This is a special share used for 868various administration functions, one of which is to grant access to backup 869operators. All you need to do is create a new domain user, specifically 870for backup. Then add the new backup user to the built in "Backup 871Operators" group. You now have backup capability for any directory on 872any computer in the domain in one easy step. This avoids using 873administrator accounts and only grants permission to do exactly what you 874want for the given user, i.e.: backup. 875Also, for additional security, you may wish to deny the ability for this 876user to logon to computers in the default domain policy. 877 878If this machine uses DHCP you will also need to make sure the 879NetBios name is set. Go to Control Panel|System|Network Identification 880(on Win2K) or Control Panel|System|Computer Name (on WinXP). 881Also, you should go to Control Panel|Network Connections|Local Area 882Connection|Properties|Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)|Properties|Advanced|WINS 883and verify that NetBios is not disabled. 884 885The relevant configuration settings are $Conf{SmbShareName}, 886$Conf{SmbShareUserName}, $Conf{SmbSharePasswd}, $Conf{SmbClientPath}, 887$Conf{SmbClientFullCmd}, $Conf{SmbClientIncrCmd} and 888$Conf{SmbClientRestoreCmd}. 889 890BackupPC needs to know the smb share user name and password for a 891client machine that uses smb. The user name is specified in 892$Conf{SmbShareUserName}. There are four ways to tell BackupPC the 893smb share password: 894 895=over 4 896 897=item * 898 899As an environment variable BPC_SMB_PASSWD set before BackupPC starts. 900If you start BackupPC manually the BPC_SMB_PASSWD variable must be set 901manually first. For backward compatibility for v1.5.0 and prior, the 902environment variable PASSWD can be used if BPC_SMB_PASSWD is not set. 903Warning: on some systems it is possible to see environment variables of 904running processes. 905 906=item * 907 908Alternatively the BPC_SMB_PASSWD setting can be included in 909/etc/init.d/backuppc, in which case you must make sure this file 910is not world (other) readable. 911 912=item * 913 914As a configuration variable $Conf{SmbSharePasswd} in 915__CONFDIR__/config.pl. If you put the password 916here you must make sure this file is not world (other) readable. 917 918=item * 919 920As a configuration variable $Conf{SmbSharePasswd} in the per-PC 921configuration file (__CONFDIR__/pc/$host.pl or 922__TOPDIR__/pc/$host/config.pl in non-FHS versions of BackupPC). 923You will have to use this option if the smb share password is different 924for each host. If you put the password here you must make sure this file 925is not world (other) readable. 926 927=back 928 929Placement and protection of the smb share password is a possible 930security risk, so please double-check the file and directory 931permissions. In a future version there might be support for 932encryption of this password, but a private key will still have to 933be stored in a protected place. Suggestions are welcome. 934 935As an alternative to setting $Conf{XferMethod} to "smb" (using 936smbclient) for WinXX clients, you can use an smb network filesystem (eg: 937ksmbfs or similar) on your linux/unix server to mount the share, 938and then set $Conf{XferMethod} to "tar" (use tar on the network 939mounted file system). 940 941Also, to make sure that file names with special characters are correctly 942transferred by smbclient you should make sure that the smb.conf file 943has (for samba 3.x): 944 945 [global] 946 unix charset = UTF8 947 948UTF8 is the default setting, so if the parameter is missing then it 949is ok. With this setting $Conf{ClientCharset} should be emtpy, 950since smbclient has already converted the file names to utf8. 951 952=item Linux/Unix 953 954The preferred setup for linux/unix clients is to set $Conf{XferMethod} 955to "rsync", "rsyncd" or "tar". 956 957You can use either rsync, smb, or tar for linux/unix machines. Smb requires 958that the Samba server (smbd) be run to provide the shares. Since the smb 959protocol can't represent special files like symbolic links and fifos, 960tar and rsync are the better transport methods for linux/unix machines. 961(In fact, by default samba makes symbolic links look like the file or 962directory that they point to, so you could get an infinite loop if a 963symbolic link points to the current or parent directory. If you really 964need to use Samba shares for linux/unix backups you should turn off the 965"follow symlinks" samba config setting. See the smb.conf manual page.) 966 967The requirements for each Xfer Method are: 968 969=over 4 970 971=item tar 972 973You must have GNU tar on the client machine. Use "tar --version" 974or "gtar --version" to verify. The version should be at least 9751.13.7, and 1.13.20 or greater is recommended. Tar is run on 976the client machine via rsh or ssh. 977 978The relevant configuration settings are $Conf{TarClientPath}, 979$Conf{TarShareName}, $Conf{TarClientCmd}, $Conf{TarFullArgs}, 980$Conf{TarIncrArgs}, and $Conf{TarClientRestoreCmd}. 981 982=item rsync 983 984You should have at least rsync 2.6.3, and the latest version is 985recommended. Rsync is run on the remote client via rsh or ssh. 986 987The relevant configuration settings are $Conf{RsyncClientPath}, 988$Conf{RsyncClientCmd}, $Conf{RsyncClientRestoreCmd}, $Conf{RsyncShareName}, 989$Conf{RsyncArgs}, and $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs}. 990 991=item rsyncd 992 993You should have at least rsync 2.6.3, and the latest version is 994recommended. In this case the rsync daemon should be running on 995the client machine and BackupPC connects directly to it. 996 997The relevant configuration settings are $Conf{RsyncdClientPort}, 998$Conf{RsyncdUserName}, $Conf{RsyncdPasswd}, $Conf{RsyncdAuthRequired}, 999$Conf{RsyncShareName}, $Conf{RsyncArgs}, $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra}, and 1000$Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs}. $Conf{RsyncShareName} is the name of an rsync 1001module (ie: the thing in square brackets in rsyncd's conf file -- see 1002rsyncd.conf), not a file system path. 1003 1004Be aware that rsyncd will remove the leading '/' from path names in 1005symbolic links if you specify "use chroot = no" in the rsynd.conf file. 1006See the rsyncd.conf manual page for more information. 1007 1008=item ftp 1009 1010You need to be running an ftp server on the client machine. 1011The relevant configuration settings are $Conf{FtpShareName}, 1012$Conf{FtpUserName}, $Conf{FtpPasswd}, $Conf{FtpBlockSize}, 1013$Conf{FtpPort}, $Conf{FtpTimeout}, and $Conf{FtpFollowSymlinks}. 1014 1015=back 1016 1017You need to set $Conf{ClientCharset} to the client's charset so that 1018file names are correctly converted to utf8. Use "locale charmap" 1019on the client to see its charset. 1020 1021For linux/unix machines you should not backup "/proc". This directory 1022contains a variety of files that look like regular files but they are 1023special files that don't need to be backed up (eg: /proc/kcore is a 1024regular file that contains physical memory). See $Conf{BackupFilesExclude}. 1025It is safe to back up /dev since it contains mostly character-special 1026and block-special files, which are correctly handed by BackupPC 1027(eg: backing up /dev/hda5 just saves the block-special file information, 1028not the contents of the disk). 1029 1030Alternatively, rather than backup all the file systems as a single 1031share ("/"), it is easier to restore a single file system if you backup 1032each file system separately. To do this you should list each file system 1033mount point in $Conf{TarShareName} or $Conf{RsyncShareName}, and add the 1034--one-file-system option to $Conf{TarClientCmd} or $Conf{RsyncArgs}. 1035In this case there is no need to exclude /proc explicitly since it looks 1036like a different file system. 1037 1038Next you should decide whether to run tar over ssh, rsh or nfs. Ssh is 1039the preferred method. Rsh is not secure and therefore not recommended. 1040Nfs will work, but you need to make sure that the BackupPC user (running 1041on the server) has sufficient permissions to read all the files below 1042the nfs mount. 1043 1044Ssh allows BackupPC to run as a privileged user on the client (eg: 1045root), since it needs sufficient permissions to read all the backup 1046files. Ssh is setup so that BackupPC on the server (an otherwise low 1047privileged user) can ssh as root on the client, without being prompted 1048for a password. There are two common versions of ssh: v1 and v2. Here 1049are some instructions for one way to setup ssh. (Check which version 1050of SSH you have by typing "ssh" or "man ssh".) 1051 1052=item MacOSX 1053 1054In general this should be similar to Linux/Unix machines. 1055In versions 10.4 and later, the native MacOSX tar works, 1056and also supports resource forks. xtar is another option, 1057and rsync works too (although the MacOSX-supplied rsync 1058has an extension for extended attributes that is not 1059compatible with standard rsync). 1060 1061=item SSH Setup 1062 1063SSH is a secure way to run tar or rsync on a backup client to extract 1064the data. SSH provides strong authentication and encryption of 1065the network data. 1066 1067Note that if you run rsyncd (rsync daemon), ssh is not used. 1068In this case, rsyncd provides its own authentication, but there 1069is no encryption of network data. If you want encryption of 1070network data you can use ssh to create a tunnel, or use a 1071program like stunnel. 1072 1073Setup instructions for ssh can be found at 1074L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/faq/ssh.html> or on the Wiki. 1075 1076=item Clients that use DHCP 1077 1078If a client machine uses DHCP BackupPC needs some way to find the 1079IP address given the host name. One alternative is to set dhcp 1080to 1 in the hosts file, and BackupPC will search a pool of IP 1081addresses looking for hosts. More efficiently, it is better to 1082set dhcp = 0 and provide a mechanism for BackupPC to find the 1083IP address given the host name. 1084 1085For WinXX machines BackupPC uses the NetBios name server to determine 1086the IP address given the host name. 1087For unix machines you can run nmbd (the NetBios name server) from 1088the Samba distribution so that the machine responds to a NetBios 1089name request. See the manual page and Samba documentation for more 1090information. 1091 1092Alternatively, you can set $Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} to any command 1093that returns the IP address given the host name. 1094 1095Please read the section L<How BackupPC Finds Hosts> 1096for more details. 1097 1098=back 1099 1100=head2 Step 6: Running BackupPC 1101 1102The installation contains an init.d backuppc script that can be copied 1103to /etc/init.d so that BackupPC can auto-start on boot. 1104See init.d/README for further instructions. 1105 1106BackupPC should be ready to start. If you installed the init.d script, 1107then you should be able to run BackupPC with: 1108 1109 /etc/init.d/backuppc start 1110 1111(This script can also be invoked with "stop" to stop BackupPC and "reload" 1112to tell BackupPC to reload config.pl and the hosts file.) 1113 1114Otherwise, just run 1115 1116 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC -d 1117 1118as user __BACKUPPCUSER__. The -d option tells BackupPC to run as a daemon 1119(ie: it does an additional fork). 1120 1121Any immediate errors will be printed to stderr and BackupPC will quit. 1122Otherwise, look in __LOGDIR__/LOG and verify that BackupPC reports 1123it has started and all is ok. 1124 1125=head2 Step 7: Talking to BackupPC 1126 1127You should verify that BackupPC is running by using BackupPC_serverMesg. 1128This sends a message to BackupPC via the unix (or TCP) socket and prints 1129the response. Like all BackupPC programs, BackupPC_serverMesg 1130should be run as the BackupPC user (__BACKUPPCUSER__), so you 1131should 1132 1133 su __BACKUPPCUSER__ 1134 1135before running BackupPC_serverMesg. If the BackupPC user is 1136configured with /bin/false as the shell, you can use the -m 1137option to su to run a shell, eg: 1138 1139 su -m __BACKUPPCUSER__ 1140 1141Depending upon your configuration you might also need 1142the -l option. 1143 1144You can request status information and start and stop backups using this 1145interface. This socket interface is mainly provided for the CGI interface 1146(and some of the BackupPC sub-programs use it too). But right now we just 1147want to make sure BackupPC is happy. Each of these commands should 1148produce some status output: 1149 1150 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_serverMesg status info 1151 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_serverMesg status jobs 1152 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_serverMesg status hosts 1153 1154The output should be some hashes printed with Data::Dumper. If it 1155looks cryptic and confusing, and doesn't look like an error message, 1156then all is ok. 1157 1158The jobs status should initially show just BackupPC_trashClean. 1159The hosts status should produce a list of every host you have listed 1160in __CONFDIR__/hosts as part of a big cryptic output line. 1161 1162You can also request that all hosts be queued: 1163 1164 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_serverMesg backup all 1165 1166At this point you should make sure the CGI interface works since 1167it will be much easier to see what is going on. That's our 1168next subject. 1169 1170=head2 Step 8: Checking email delivery 1171 1172The script BackupPC_sendEmail sends status and error emails to 1173the administrator and users. It is usually run each night 1174by BackupPC_nightly. 1175 1176To verify that it can run sendmail and deliver email correctly 1177you should ask it to send a test email to you: 1178 1179 su __BACKUPPCUSER__ 1180 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_sendEmail -u MYNAME@MYDOMAIN.COM 1181 1182BackupPC_sendEmail also takes a -c option that checks if BackupPC 1183is running, and it sends an email to $Conf{EMailAdminUserName} 1184if it is not. That can be used as a keep-alive check by adding 1185 1186 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_sendEmail -c 1187 1188to __BACKUPPCUSER__'s cron. 1189 1190The -t option to BackupPC_sendEmail causes it to print the email 1191message instead of invoking sendmail to deliver the message. 1192 1193=head2 Step 9: CGI interface 1194 1195The CGI interface script, BackupPC_Admin, is a powerful and flexible 1196way to see and control what BackupPC is doing. It is written for an 1197Apache server. If you don't have Apache, see L<http://www.apache.org>. 1198 1199There are two options for setting up the CGI interface: standard 1200mode and using mod_perl. Mod_perl provides much higher performance 1201(around 15x) and is the best choice if your Apache was built with 1202mod_perl support. To see if your apache was built with mod_perl 1203run this command: 1204 1205 httpd -l | egrep mod_perl 1206 1207If this prints mod_perl.c then your Apache supports mod_perl. 1208 1209Note: on some distributions (like Debian) the command is not ``httpd'', 1210but ``apache'' or ``apache2''. Those distributions will generally also 1211use ``apache'' for the Apache user account and configuration files. 1212 1213Using mod_perl with BackupPC_Admin requires a dedicated Apache 1214to be run as the BackupPC user (__BACKUPPCUSER__). This is 1215because BackupPC_Admin needs permission to access various files 1216in BackupPC's data directories. In contrast, the standard 1217installation (without mod_perl) solves this problem by having 1218BackupPC_Admin installed as setuid to the BackupPC user, so that 1219BackupPC_Admin runs as the BackupPC user. 1220 1221Here are some specifics for each setup: 1222 1223=over 4 1224 1225=item Standard Setup 1226 1227The CGI interface should have been installed by the configure.pl script 1228in __CGIDIR__/BackupPC_Admin. BackupPC_Admin should have been installed 1229as setuid to the BackupPC user (__BACKUPPCUSER__), in addition to user 1230and group execute permission. 1231 1232You should be very careful about permissions on BackupPC_Admin and 1233the directory __CGIDIR__: it is important that normal users cannot 1234directly execute or change BackupPC_Admin, otherwise they can access 1235backup files for any PC. You might need to change the group ownership 1236of BackupPC_Admin to a group that Apache belongs to so that Apache 1237can execute it (don't add "other" execute permission!). 1238The permissions should look like this: 1239 1240 ls -l __CGIDIR__/BackupPC_Admin 1241 -swxr-x--- 1 __BACKUPPCUSER__ web 82406 Jun 17 22:58 __CGIDIR__/BackupPC_Admin 1242 1243The setuid script won't work unless perl on your machine was installed 1244with setuid emulation. This is likely the problem if you get an error 1245saying such as "Wrong user: my userid is 25, instead of 150", meaning 1246the script is running as the httpd user, not the BackupPC user. 1247This is because setuid scripts are disabled by the kernel in most 1248flavors of unix and linux. 1249 1250To see if your perl has setuid emulation, see if there is a program 1251called sperl5.8.0 (or sperl5.8.2 etc, based on your perl version) 1252in the place where perl is installed. If you can't find this program, 1253then you have two options: rebuild and reinstall perl with the setuid 1254emulation turned on (answer "y" to the question "Do you want to do 1255setuid/setgid emulation?" when you run perl's configure script), or 1256switch to the mod_perl alternative for the CGI script (which doesn't 1257need setuid to work). 1258 1259=item Mod_perl Setup 1260 1261The advantage of the mod_perl setup is that no setuid script is needed, 1262and there is a huge performance advantage. Not only does all the perl 1263code need to be parsed just once, the config.pl and hosts files, plus 1264the connection to the BackupPC server are cached between requests. The 1265typical speedup is around 15 times. 1266 1267To use mod_perl you need to run Apache as user __BACKUPPCUSER__. 1268If you need to run multiple Apache's for different services then 1269you need to create multiple top-level Apache directories, each 1270with their own config file. You can make copies of /etc/init.d/httpd 1271and use the -d option to httpd to point each http to a different 1272top-level directory. Or you can use the -f option to explicitly 1273point to the config file. Multiple Apache's will run on different 1274Ports (eg: 80 is standard, 8080 is a typical alternative port accessed 1275via http://yourhost.com:8080). 1276 1277Inside BackupPC's Apache http.conf file you should check the 1278settings for ServerRoot, DocumentRoot, User, Group, and Port. See 1279L<http://httpd.apache.org/docs/server-wide.html> for more details. 1280 1281For mod_perl, BackupPC_Admin should not have setuid permission, so 1282you should turn it off: 1283 1284 chmod u-s __CGIDIR__/BackupPC_Admin 1285 1286To tell Apache to use mod_perl to execute BackupPC_Admin, add this 1287to Apache's 1.x httpd.conf file: 1288 1289 <IfModule mod_perl.c> 1290 PerlModule Apache::Registry 1291 PerlTaintCheck On 1292 <Location /cgi-bin/BackupPC/BackupPC_Admin> # <--- change path as needed 1293 SetHandler perl-script 1294 PerlHandler Apache::Registry 1295 Options ExecCGI 1296 PerlSendHeader On 1297 </Location> 1298 </IfModule> 1299 1300Apache 2.0.44 with Perl 5.8.0 on RedHat 7.1, Don Silvia reports that 1301this works (with tweaks from Michael Tuzi): 1302 1303 LoadModule perl_module modules/mod_perl.so 1304 PerlModule Apache2 1305 1306 <Directory /path/to/cgi/> 1307 SetHandler perl-script 1308 PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry 1309 PerlOptions +ParseHeaders 1310 Options +ExecCGI 1311 Order deny,allow 1312 Deny from all 1313 Allow from 192.168.0 1314 AuthName "Backup Admin" 1315 AuthType Basic 1316 AuthUserFile /path/to/user_file 1317 Require valid-user 1318 </Directory> 1319 1320There are other optimizations and options with mod_perl. For 1321example, you can tell mod_perl to preload various perl modules, 1322which saves memory compared to loading separate copies in every 1323Apache process after they are forked. See Stas's definitive 1324mod_perl guide at L<http://perl.apache.org/guide>. 1325 1326=back 1327 1328BackupPC_Admin requires that users are authenticated by Apache. 1329Specifically, it expects that Apache sets the REMOTE_USER environment 1330variable when it runs. There are several ways to do this. One way 1331is to create a .htaccess file in the cgi-bin directory that looks like: 1332 1333 AuthGroupFile /etc/httpd/conf/group # <--- change path as needed 1334 AuthUserFile /etc/http/conf/passwd # <--- change path as needed 1335 AuthType basic 1336 AuthName "access" 1337 require valid-user 1338 1339You will also need "AllowOverride Indexes AuthConfig" in the Apache 1340httpd.conf file to enable the .htaccess file. Alternatively, everything 1341can go in the Apache httpd.conf file inside a Location directive. The 1342list of users and password file above can be extracted from the NIS 1343passwd file. 1344 1345One alternative is to use LDAP. In Apache's http.conf add these lines: 1346 1347 LoadModule auth_ldap_module modules/auth_ldap.so 1348 AddModule auth_ldap.c 1349 1350 # cgi-bin - auth via LDAP (for BackupPC) 1351 <Location /cgi-binBackupPC/BackupPC_Admin> # <--- change path as needed 1352 AuthType Basic 1353 AuthName "BackupPC login" 1354 # replace MYDOMAIN, PORT, ORG and CO as needed 1355 AuthLDAPURL ldap://ldap.MYDOMAIN.com:PORT/o=ORG,c=CO?uid?sub?(objectClass=*) 1356 require valid-user 1357 </Location> 1358 1359If you want to disable the user authentication you can set 1360$Conf{CgiAdminUsers} to '*', which allows any user to have 1361full access to all hosts and backups. In this case the REMOTE_USER 1362environment variable does not have to be set by Apache. 1363 1364Alternatively, you can force a particular user name by getting Apache 1365to set REMOTE_USER, eg, to hardcode the user to www you could add 1366this to Apache's httpd.conf: 1367 1368 <Location /cgi-bin/BackupPC/BackupPC_Admin> # <--- change path as needed 1369 Setenv REMOTE_USER www 1370 </Location> 1371 1372Finally, you should also edit the config.pl file and adjust, as necessary, 1373the CGI-specific settings. They're near the end of the config file. In 1374particular, you should specify which users or groups have administrator 1375(privileged) access: see the config settings $Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} 1376and $Conf{CgiAdminUsers}. Also, the configure.pl script placed various 1377images into $Conf{CgiImageDir} that BackupPC_Admin needs to serve 1378up. You should make sure that $Conf{CgiImageDirURL} is the correct 1379URL for the image directory. 1380 1381See the section L<Fixing installation problems> for suggestions on debugging the Apache authentication setup. 1382 1383=head2 How BackupPC Finds Hosts 1384 1385Starting with v2.0.0 the way hosts are discovered has changed. In most 1386cases you should specify 0 for the DHCP flag in the conf/hosts file, 1387even if the host has a dynamically assigned IP address. 1388 1389BackupPC (starting with v2.0.0) looks up hosts with DHCP = 0 in this manner: 1390 1391=over 4 1392 1393=item * 1394 1395First DNS is used to lookup the IP address given the client's name 1396using perl's gethostbyname() function. This should succeed for machines 1397that have fixed IP addresses that are known via DNS. You can manually 1398see whether a given host have a DNS entry according to perl's 1399gethostbyname function with this command: 1400 1401 perl -e 'print(gethostbyname("myhost") ? "ok\n" : "not found\n");' 1402 1403=item * 1404 1405If gethostbyname() fails, BackupPC then attempts a NetBios multicast to 1406find the host. Provided your client machine is configured properly, 1407it should respond to this NetBios multicast request. Specifically, 1408BackupPC runs a command of this form: 1409 1410 nmblookup myhost 1411 1412If this fails you will see output like: 1413 1414 querying myhost on 10.10.255.255 1415 name_query failed to find name myhost 1416 1417If it is successful you will see output like: 1418 1419 querying myhost on 10.10.255.255 1420 10.10.1.73 myhost<00> 1421 1422Depending on your netmask you might need to specify the -B option to 1423nmblookup. For example: 1424 1425 nmblookup -B 10.10.1.255 myhost 1426 1427If necessary, experiment with the nmblookup command which will return the 1428IP address of the client given its name. Then update 1429$Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} with any necessary options to nmblookup. 1430 1431=back 1432 1433For hosts that have the DHCP flag set to 1, these machines are 1434discovered as follows: 1435 1436=over 4 1437 1438=item * 1439 1440A DHCP address pool ($Conf{DHCPAddressRanges}) needs to be specified. 1441BackupPC will check the NetBIOS name of each machine in the range using 1442a command of the form: 1443 1444 nmblookup -A W.X.Y.Z 1445 1446where W.X.Y.Z is each candidate address from $Conf{DHCPAddressRanges}. 1447Any host that has a valid NetBIOS name returned by this command (ie: 1448matching an entry in the hosts file) will be backed up. You can 1449modify the specific nmblookup command if necessary via $Conf{NmbLookupCmd}. 1450 1451=item * 1452 1453You only need to use this DHCP feature if your client machine doesn't 1454respond to the NetBios multicast request: 1455 1456 nmblookup myHost 1457 1458but does respond to a request directed to its IP address: 1459 1460 nmblookup -A W.X.Y.Z 1461 1462=back 1463 1464=head2 Other installation topics 1465 1466=over 4 1467 1468=item Removing a client 1469 1470If there is a machine that no longer needs to be backed up (eg: a retired 1471machine) you have two choices. First, you can keep the backups accessible 1472and browsable, but disable all new backups. Alternatively, you can 1473completely remove the client and all its backups. 1474 1475To disable backups for a client $Conf{BackupsDisable} can be 1476set to two different values in that client's per-PC config.pl file: 1477 1478=over 4 1479 1480=item 1 1481 1482Don't do any regular backups on this machine. Manually 1483requested backups (via the CGI interface) will still occur. 1484 1485=item 2 1486 1487Don't do any backups on this machine. Manually requested 1488backups (via the CGI interface) will be ignored. 1489 1490=back 1491 1492This will still allow the client's old backups to be browsable 1493and restorable. 1494 1495To completely remove a client and all its backups, you should remove its 1496entry in the conf/hosts file, and then delete the __TOPDIR__/pc/$host 1497directory. Whenever you change the hosts file, you should send 1498BackupPC a HUP (-1) signal so that it re-reads the hosts file. 1499If you don't do this, BackupPC will automatically re-read the 1500hosts file at the next regular wakeup. 1501 1502Note that when you remove a client's backups you won't initially 1503recover much disk space. That's because the client's files are 1504still in the pool. Overnight, when BackupPC_nightly next runs, 1505all the unused pool files will be deleted and this will recover 1506the disk space used by the client's backups. 1507 1508=item Copying the pool 1509 1510If the pool disk requirements grow you might need to copy the entire 1511data directory to a new (bigger) file system. Hopefully you are lucky 1512enough to avoid this by having the data directory on a RAID file system 1513or LVM that allows the capacity to be grown in place by adding disks. 1514 1515The backup data directories contain large numbers of hardlinks. If 1516you try to copy the pool the target directory will occupy a lot more 1517space if the hardlinks aren't re-established. 1518 1519The best way to copy a pool file system, if possible, is by copying 1520the raw device at the block level (eg: using dd). Application level 1521programs that understand hardlinks include the GNU cp program with 1522the -a option and rsync -H. However, the large number of hardlinks 1523in the pool will make the memory usage large and the copy very slow. 1524Don't forget to stop BackupPC while the copy runs. 1525 1526Starting in 3.0.0 a new script bin/BackupPC_tarPCCopy can be 1527used to assist the copy process. Given one or more pc paths 1528(eg: TOPDIR/pc/HOST or TOPDIR/pc/HOST/nnn), BackupPC_tarPCCopy 1529creates a tar archive with all the hardlinks pointing to ../cpool/.... 1530Any files not hardlinked (eg: backups, LOG etc) are included 1531verbatim. 1532 1533You will need to specify the -P option to tar when you extract 1534the archive generated by BackupPC_tarPCCopy since the hardlink 1535targets are outside of the directory being extracted. 1536 1537To copy a complete store (ie: __TOPDIR__) using BackupPC_tarPCCopy 1538you should: 1539 1540=over 4 1541 1542=item * 1543 1544stop BackupPC so that the store is static. 1545 1546=item * 1547 1548copy the cpool, conf and log directory trees using any technique 1549(like cp, rsync or tar) without the need to preserve hardlinks. 1550 1551=item * 1552 1553copy the pc directory using BackupPC_tarPCCopy: 1554 1555 su __BACKUPPCUSER__ 1556 cd NEW_TOPDIR 1557 mkdir pc 1558 cd pc 1559 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_tarPCCopy __TOPDIR__/pc | tar xvPf - 1560 1561=back 1562 1563=back 1564 1565=head2 Fixing installation problems 1566 1567Please see the Wiki at L<http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net> for 1568debugging suggestions. If you find a solution to your problem that 1569could help other users please add it to the Wiki! 1570 1571=head1 Restore functions 1572 1573BackupPC supports several different methods for restoring files. The 1574most convenient restore options are provided via the CGI interface. 1575Alternatively, backup files can be restored using manual commands. 1576 1577=head2 CGI restore options 1578 1579By selecting a host in the CGI interface, a list of all the backups 1580for that machine will be displayed. By selecting the backup number 1581you can navigate the shares and directory tree for that backup. 1582 1583BackupPC's CGI interface automatically fills incremental backups 1584with the corresponding full backup, which means each backup has 1585a filled appearance. Therefore, there is no need to do multiple 1586restores from the incremental and full backups: BackupPC does all 1587the hard work for you. You simply select the files and directories 1588you want from the correct backup vintage in one step. 1589 1590You can download a single backup file at any time simply by selecting 1591it. Your browser should prompt you with the file name and ask you 1592whether to open the file or save it to disk. 1593 1594Alternatively, you can select one or more files or directories in 1595the currently selected directory and select "Restore selected files". 1596(If you need to restore selected files and directories from several 1597different parent directories you will need to do that in multiple 1598steps.) 1599 1600If you select all the files in a directory, BackupPC will replace 1601the list of files with the parent directory. You will be presented 1602with a screen that has three options: 1603 1604=over 4 1605 1606=item Option 1: Direct Restore 1607 1608With this option the selected files and directories are restored 1609directly back onto the host, by default in their original location. 1610Any old files with the same name will be overwritten, so use caution. 1611You can optionally change the target host name, target share name, 1612and target path prefix for the restore, allowing you to restore the 1613files to a different location. 1614 1615Once you select "Start Restore" you will be prompted one last time 1616with a summary of the exact source and target files and directories 1617before you commit. When you give the final go ahead the restore 1618operation will be queued like a normal backup job, meaning that it 1619will be deferred if there is a backup currently running for that host. 1620When the restore job is run, smbclient, tar, rsync or rsyncd is used 1621(depending upon $Conf{XferMethod}) to actually restore the files. 1622Sorry, there is currently no option to cancel a restore that has been 1623started. Currently ftp restores are not fully implemented. 1624 1625A record of the restore request, including the result and list of 1626files and directories, is kept. It can be browsed from the host's 1627home page. $Conf{RestoreInfoKeepCnt} specifies how many old restore 1628status files to keep. 1629 1630Note that for direct restore to work, the $Conf{XferMethod} must 1631be able to write to the client. For example, that means an SMB 1632share for smbclient needs to be writable, and the rsyncd module 1633needs "read only" set to "false". This creates additional security 1634risks. If you only create read-only SMB shares (which is a good 1635idea), then the direct restore will fail. You can disable the 1636direct restore option by setting $Conf{SmbClientRestoreCmd}, 1637$Conf{TarClientRestoreCmd} and $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs} to undef. 1638 1639=item Option 2: Download Zip archive 1640 1641With this option a zip file containing the selected files and directories 1642is downloaded. The zip file can then be unpacked or individual files 1643extracted as necessary on the host machine. The compression level can be 1644specified. A value of 0 turns off compression. 1645 1646When you select "Download Zip File" you should be prompted where to 1647save the restore.zip file. 1648 1649BackupPC does not consider downloading a zip file as an actual 1650restore operation, so the details are not saved for later browsing 1651as in the first case. However, a mention that a zip file was 1652downloaded by a particular user, and a list of the files, does 1653appear in BackupPC's log file. 1654 1655=item Option 3: Download Tar archive 1656 1657This is identical to the previous option, except a tar file is downloaded 1658rather than a zip file (and there is currently no compression option). 1659 1660=back 1661 1662=head2 Command-line restore options 1663 1664Apart from the CGI interface, BackupPC allows you to restore files 1665and directories from the command line. The following programs can 1666be used: 1667 1668=over 4 1669 1670=item BackupPC_zcat 1671 1672For each file name argument it inflates (uncompresses) the file and 1673writes it to stdout. To use BackupPC_zcat you could give it the 1674full file name, eg: 1675 1676 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_zcat __TOPDIR__/pc/host/5/fc/fcraig/fexample.txt > example.txt 1677 1678It's your responsibility to make sure the file is really compressed: 1679BackupPC_zcat doesn't check which backup the requested file is from. 1680BackupPC_zcat returns a non-zero status if it fails to uncompress 1681a file. 1682 1683=item BackupPC_tarCreate 1684 1685BackupPC_tarCreate creates a tar file for any files or directories in 1686a particular backup. Merging of incrementals is done automatically, 1687so you don't need to worry about whether certain files appear in the 1688incremental or full backup. 1689 1690The usage is: 1691 1692 BackupPC_tarCreate [options] files/directories... 1693 Required options: 1694 -h host host from which the tar archive is created 1695 -n dumpNum dump number from which the tar archive is created 1696 A negative number means relative to the end (eg -1 1697 means the most recent dump, -2 2nd most recent etc). 1698 -s shareName share name from which the tar archive is created 1699 1700 Other options: 1701 -t print summary totals 1702 -r pathRemove path prefix that will be replaced with pathAdd 1703 -p pathAdd new path prefix 1704 -b BLOCKS BLOCKS x 512 bytes per record (default 20; same as tar) 1705 -w writeBufSz write buffer size (default 1048576 = 1MB) 1706 -e charset charset for encoding file names (default: value of 1707 $Conf{ClientCharset} when backup was done) 1708 -l just print a file listing; don't generate an archive 1709 -L just print a detailed file listing; don't generate an archive 1710 1711The command-line files and directories are relative to the specified 1712shareName. The tar file is written to stdout. 1713 1714The -h, -n and -s options specify which dump is used to generate 1715the tar archive. The -r and -p options can be used to relocate 1716the paths in the tar archive so extracted files can be placed 1717in a location different from their original location. 1718 1719=item BackupPC_zipCreate 1720 1721BackupPC_zipCreate creates a zip file for any files or directories in 1722a particular backup. Merging of incrementals is done automatically, 1723so you don't need to worry about whether certain files appear in the 1724incremental or full backup. 1725 1726The usage is: 1727 1728 BackupPC_zipCreate [options] files/directories... 1729 Required options: 1730 -h host host from which the zip archive is created 1731 -n dumpNum dump number from which the tar archive is created 1732 A negative number means relative to the end (eg -1 1733 means the most recent dump, -2 2nd most recent etc). 1734 -s shareName share name from which the zip archive is created 1735 1736 Other options: 1737 -t print summary totals 1738 -r pathRemove path prefix that will be replaced with pathAdd 1739 -p pathAdd new path prefix 1740 -c level compression level (default is 0, no compression) 1741 -e charset charset for encoding file names (default: utf8) 1742 1743The command-line files and directories are relative to the specified 1744shareName. The zip file is written to stdout. The -h, -n and -s 1745options specify which dump is used to generate the zip archive. The 1746-r and -p options can be used to relocate the paths in the zip archive 1747so extracted files can be placed in a location different from their 1748original location. 1749 1750=back 1751 1752Each of these programs reside in __INSTALLDIR__/bin. 1753 1754=head1 Archive functions 1755 1756BackupPC supports archiving to removable media. For users that require 1757offsite backups, BackupPC can create archives that stream to tape 1758devices, or create files of specified sizes to fit onto cd or dvd media. 1759 1760Each archive type is specified by a BackupPC host with its XferMethod 1761set to 'archive'. This allows for multiple configurations at sites where 1762there might be a combination of tape and cd/dvd backups being made. 1763 1764BackupPC provides a menu that allows one or more hosts to be archived. 1765The most recent backup of each host is archived using BackupPC_tarCreate, 1766and the output is optionally compressed and split into fixed-sized 1767files (eg: 650MB). 1768 1769The archive for each host is done by default using 1770__INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_archiveHost. This script can be copied 1771and customized as needed. 1772 1773=head2 Configuring an Archive Host 1774 1775To create an Archive Host, add it to the hosts file just as any other host 1776and call it a name that best describes the type of archive, e.g. ArchiveDLT 1777 1778To tell BackupPC that the Host is for Archives, create a config.pl file in 1779the Archive Hosts's pc directory, adding the following line: 1780 1781$Conf{XferMethod} = 'archive'; 1782 1783To further customise the archive's parameters you can adding the changed 1784parameters in the host's config.pl file. The parameters are explained in 1785the config.pl file. Parameters may be fixed or the user can be allowed 1786to change them (eg: output device). 1787 1788The per-host archive command is $Conf{ArchiveClientCmd}. By default 1789this invokes 1790 1791 __INSTALLDIR__/bin/BackupPC_archiveHost 1792 1793which you can copy and customize as necessary. 1794 1795=head2 Starting an Archive 1796 1797In the web interface, click on the Archive Host you wish to use. You will see a 1798list of previous archives and a summary on each. By clicking the "Start Archive" 1799button you are presented with the list of hosts and the approximate backup size 1800(note this is raw size, not projected compressed size) Select the hosts you wish 1801to archive and press the "Archive Selected Hosts" button. 1802 1803The next screen allows you to adjust the parameters for this archive run. 1804Press the "Start the Archive" to start archiving the selected hosts with the 1805parameters displayed. 1806 1807=head2 Starting an Archive from the command line 1808 1809The script BackupPC_archiveStart can be used to start an archive from 1810the command line (or cron etc). The usage is: 1811 1812 BackupPC_archiveStart archiveHost userName hosts... 1813 1814This creates an archive of the most recent backup of each of 1815the specified hosts. The first two arguments are the archive 1816host and the user name making the request. 1817 1818=head1 Other CGI Functions 1819 1820=head2 Configuration and Host Editor 1821 1822The CGI interface has a complete configuration and host editor. 1823Only the administrator can edit the main configuration settings 1824and hosts. The edit links are in the left navigation bar. 1825 1826When changes are made to any parameter a "Save" button appears 1827at the top of the page. If you are editing a text box you will 1828need to click outside of the text box to make the Save button 1829appear. If you don't select Save then the changes won't be saved. 1830 1831The host-specific configuration can be edited from the host 1832summary page using the link in the left navigation bar. 1833The administrator can edit any of the host-specific 1834configuration settings. 1835 1836When editing the host-specific configuration, each parameter has 1837an "override" setting that denotes the value is host-specific, 1838meaning that it overrides the setting in the main configuration. 1839If you unselect "override" then the setting is removed from 1840the host-specific configuration, and the main configuration 1841file is displayed. 1842 1843User's can edit their host-specific configuration if enabled 1844via $Conf{CgiUserConfigEditEnable}. The specific subset 1845of configuration settings that a user can edit is specified 1846with $Conf{CgiUserConfigEdit}. It is recommended to make this 1847list short as possible (you probably don't want your users saving 1848dozens of backups) and it is essential that they can't edit any 1849of the Cmd configuration settings, otherwise they can specify 1850an arbitrary command that will be executed as the BackupPC 1851user. 1852 1853=head2 RSS 1854 1855BackupPC supports a very basic RSS feed. Provided you have the 1856XML::RSS perl module installed, a URL similar to this will 1857provide RSS information: 1858 1859 http://localhost/cgi-bin/BackupPC/BackupPC_Admin?action=rss 1860 1861This feature is experimental. The information included will 1862probably change. 1863 1864=head1 BackupPC Design 1865 1866=head2 Some design issues 1867 1868=over 4 1869 1870=item Pooling common files 1871 1872To quickly see if a file is already in the pool, an MD5 digest of the 1873file length and contents is used as the file name in the pool. This 1874can't guarantee a file is identical: it just reduces the search to 1875often a single file or handful of files. A complete file comparison 1876is always done to verify if two files are really the same. 1877 1878Identical files on multiples backups are represented by hard links. 1879Hardlinks are used so that identical files all refer to the same 1880physical file on the server's disk. Also, hard links maintain 1881reference counts so that BackupPC knows when to delete unused files 1882from the pool. 1883 1884For the computer-science majors among you, you can think of the pooling 1885system used by BackupPC as just a chained hash table stored on a (big) 1886file system. 1887 1888=item The hashing function 1889 1890There is a tradeoff between how much of file is used for the MD5 digest 1891and the time taken comparing all the files that have the same hash. 1892 1893Using the file length and just the first 4096 bytes of the file for the 1894MD5 digest produces some repetitions. One example: with 900,000 unique 1895files in the pool, this hash gives about 7,000 repeated files, and in 1896the worst case 500 files have the same hash. That's not bad: we only 1897have to do a single file compare 99.2% of the time. But in the worst 1898case we have to compare as many as 500 files checking for a match. 1899 1900With a modest increase in CPU time, if we use the file length and the 1901first 256K of the file we now only have 500 repeated files and in the 1902worst case around 20 files have the same hash. Furthermore, if we 1903instead use the first and last 128K of the file (more specifically, the 1904first and eighth 128K chunks for files larger than 1MB) we get only 300 1905repeated files and in the worst case around 20 files have the same hash. 1906 1907Based on this experimentation, this is the hash function used by BackupPC. 1908It is important that you don't change the hash function after files 1909are already in the pool. Otherwise your pool will grow to twice the 1910size until all the old backups (and all the old files with old hashes) 1911eventually expire. 1912 1913=item Compression 1914 1915BackupPC supports compression. It uses the deflate and inflate methods 1916in the Compress::Zlib module, which is based on the zlib compression 1917library (see L<http://www.gzip.org/zlib/>). 1918 1919The $Conf{CompressLevel} setting specifies the compression level to use. 1920Zero (0) means no compression. Compression levels can be from 1 (least 1921cpu time, slightly worse compression) to 9 (most cpu time, slightly 1922better compression). The recommended value is 3. Changing it to 5, for 1923example, will take maybe 20% more cpu time and will get another 2-3% 1924additional compression. Diminishing returns set in above 5. See the zlib 1925documentation for more information about compression levels. 1926 1927BackupPC implements compression with minimal CPU load. Rather than 1928compressing every incoming backup file and then trying to match it 1929against the pool, BackupPC computes the MD5 digest based on the 1930uncompressed file, and matches against the candidate pool files by 1931comparing each uncompressed pool file against the incoming backup file. 1932Since inflating a file takes roughly a factor of 10 less CPU time than 1933deflating there is a big saving in CPU time. 1934 1935The combination of pooling common files and compression can yield 1936a factor of 8 or more overall saving in backup storage. 1937 1938=back 1939 1940=head2 BackupPC operation 1941 1942BackupPC reads the configuration information from 1943__CONFDIR__/config.pl. It then runs and manages all the backup 1944activity. It maintains queues of pending backup requests, user backup 1945requests and administrative commands. Based on the configuration various 1946requests will be executed simultaneously. 1947 1948As specified by $Conf{WakeupSchedule}, BackupPC wakes up periodically 1949to queue backups on all the PCs. This is a four step process: 1950 1951=over 4 1952 1953=item 1 1954 1955For each host and DHCP address backup requests are queued on the 1956background command queue. 1957 1958=item 2 1959 1960For each PC, BackupPC_dump is forked. Several of these may be run in 1961parallel, based on the configuration. First a ping is done to see if 1962the machine is alive. If this is a DHCP address, nmblookup is run to 1963get the netbios name, which is used as the host name. If DNS lookup 1964fails, $Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} is run to find the IP address from 1965the host name. The file __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/backups is read to decide 1966whether a full or incremental backup needs to be run. If no backup is 1967scheduled, or the ping to $host fails, then BackupPC_dump exits. 1968 1969The backup is done using the specified XferMethod. Either samba's smbclient 1970or tar over ssh/rsh/nfs piped into BackupPC_tarExtract, or rsync over ssh/rsh 1971is run, or rsyncd is connected to, with the incoming data 1972extracted to __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/new. The XferMethod output is put 1973into __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/XferLOG. 1974 1975The letter in the XferLOG file shows the type of object, similar to the 1976first letter of the modes displayed by ls -l: 1977 1978 d -> directory 1979 l -> symbolic link 1980 b -> block special file 1981 c -> character special file 1982 p -> pipe file (fifo) 1983 nothing -> regular file 1984 1985The words mean: 1986 1987=over 4 1988 1989=item create 1990 1991new for this backup (ie: directory or file not in pool) 1992 1993=item pool 1994 1995found a match in the pool 1996 1997=item same 1998 1999file is identical to previous backup (contents were 2000checksummed and verified during full dump). 2001 2002=item skip 2003 2004file skipped in incremental because attributes are the 2005same (only displayed if $Conf{XferLogLevel} >= 2). 2006 2007=back 2008 2009As BackupPC_tarExtract extracts the files from smbclient or tar, or as 2010rsync or ftp runs, it checks each file in the backup to see if it is 2011identical to an existing file from any previous backup of any PC. It 2012does this without needed to write the file to disk. If the file matches 2013an existing file, a hardlink is created to the existing file in the 2014pool. If the file does not match any existing files, the file is written 2015to disk and the file name is saved in __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/NewFileList 2016for later processing by BackupPC_link. BackupPC_tarExtract and rsync 2017can handle arbitrarily large files and multiple candidate matching files 2018without needing to write the file to disk in the case of a match. This 2019significantly reduces disk writes (and also reads, since the pool file 2020comparison is done disk to memory, rather than disk to disk). 2021 2022Based on the configuration settings, BackupPC_dump checks each 2023old backup to see if any should be removed. Any expired backups 2024are moved to __TOPDIR__/trash for later removal by BackupPC_trashClean. 2025 2026=item 3 2027 2028For each complete, good, backup, BackupPC_link is run. 2029To avoid race conditions as new files are linked into the 2030pool area, only a single BackupPC_link program runs 2031at a time and the rest are queued. 2032 2033BackupPC_link reads the NewFileList written by BackupPC_dump and 2034inspects each new file in the backup. It re-checks if there is a 2035matching file in the pool (another BackupPC_link 2036could have added the file since BackupPC_dump checked). If so, the file 2037is removed and replaced by a hard link to the existing file. If the file 2038is new, a hard link to the file is made in the pool area, so that this 2039file is available for checking against each new file and new backup. 2040 2041Then, if $Conf{IncrFill} is set (note that the default setting is 2042off), for each incremental backup, hard links are made in the new 2043backup to all files that were not extracted during the incremental 2044backups. The means the incremental backup looks like a complete 2045image of the PC (with the exception that files that were removed on 2046the PC since the last full backup will still appear in the backup 2047directory tree). 2048 2049The CGI interface knows how to merge unfilled incremental backups will 2050the most recent prior filled (full) backup, giving the incremental 2051backups a filled appearance. The default for $Conf{IncrFill} is off, 2052since there is no need to fill incremental backups. This saves 2053some level of disk activity, since lots of extra hardlinks are no 2054longer needed (and don't have to be deleted when the backup expires). 2055 2056=item 4 2057 2058BackupPC_trashClean is always run in the background to remove any 2059expired backups. Every 5 minutes it wakes up and removes all the files 2060in __TOPDIR__/trash. 2061 2062Also, once each night, BackupPC_nightly is run to complete some 2063additional administrative tasks, such as cleaning the pool. This 2064involves removing any files in the pool that only have a single 2065hard link (meaning no backups are using that file). Again, to 2066avoid race conditions, BackupPC_nightly is only run when there 2067are no BackupPC_link processes running. When BackupPC_nightly is 2068run no new BackupPC_link jobs are started. If BackupPC_nightly 2069takes too long to run, the settings $Conf{MaxBackupPCNightlyJobs} 2070and $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} can be used to run several 2071BackupPC_nightly processes in parallel, and to split its job over 2072several nights. 2073 2074=back 2075 2076BackupPC also listens for TCP connections on $Conf{ServerPort}, which 2077is used by the CGI script BackupPC_Admin for status reporting and 2078user-initiated backup or backup cancel requests. 2079 2080=head2 Storage layout 2081 2082BackupPC resides in several directories: 2083 2084=over 4 2085 2086=item __INSTALLDIR__ 2087 2088Perl scripts comprising BackupPC reside in __INSTALLDIR__/bin, 2089libraries are in __INSTALLDIR__/lib and documentation 2090is in __INSTALLDIR__/doc. 2091 2092=item __CGIDIR__ 2093 2094The CGI script BackupPC_Admin resides in this cgi binary directory. 2095 2096=item __CONFDIR__ 2097 2098All the configuration information resides below __CONFDIR__. 2099This directory contains: 2100 2101The directory __CONFDIR__ contains: 2102 2103=over 4 2104 2105=item config.pl 2106 2107Configuration file. See L<Configuration File> below for more details. 2108 2109=item hosts 2110 2111Hosts file, which lists all the PCs to backup. 2112 2113=item pc 2114 2115The directory __CONFDIR__/pc contains per-client configuration files 2116that override settings in the main configuration file. Each file 2117is named __CONFDIR__/pc/HOST.pl, where HOST is the host name. 2118 2119In pre-FHS versions of BackupPC these files were located in 2120__TOPDIR__/pc/HOST/config.pl. 2121 2122=back 2123 2124=item __LOGDIR__ 2125 2126The directory __LOGDIR__ (__TOPDIR__/log on pre-FHS versions 2127of BackupPC) contains: 2128 2129=over 4 2130 2131=item LOG 2132 2133Current (today's) log file output from BackupPC. 2134 2135=item LOG.0 or LOG.0.z 2136 2137Yesterday's log file output. Log files are aged daily and compressed 2138(if compression is enabled), and old LOG files are deleted. 2139 2140=item BackupPC.pid 2141 2142Contains BackupPC's process id. 2143 2144=item status.pl 2145 2146A summary of BackupPC's status written periodically by BackupPC so 2147that certain state information can be maintained if BackupPC is 2148restarted. Should not be edited. 2149 2150=item UserEmailInfo.pl 2151 2152A summary of what email was last sent to each user, and when the 2153last email was sent. Should not be edited. 2154 2155=back 2156 2157=item __TOPDIR__ 2158 2159All of BackupPC's data (PC backup images, logs, configuration information) 2160is stored below this directory. 2161 2162Below __TOPDIR__ are several directories: 2163 2164=over 4 2165 2166=item __TOPDIR__/trash 2167 2168Any directories and files below this directory are periodically deleted 2169whenever BackupPC_trashClean checks. When a backup is aborted or when an 2170old backup expires, BackupPC_dump simply moves the directory to 2171__TOPDIR__/trash for later removal by BackupPC_trashClean. 2172 2173=item __TOPDIR__/pool 2174 2175All uncompressed files from PC backups are stored below __TOPDIR__/pool. 2176Each file's name is based on the MD5 hex digest of the file contents. 2177Specifically, for files less than 256K, the file length and the entire 2178file is used. For files up to 1MB, the file length and the first and 2179last 128K are used. Finally, for files longer than 1MB, the file length, 2180and the first and eighth 128K chunks for the file are used. 2181 2182Each file is stored in a subdirectory X/Y/Z, where X, Y, Z are the 2183first 3 hex digits of the MD5 digest. 2184 2185For example, if a file has an MD5 digest of 123456789abcdef0, 2186the file is stored in __TOPDIR__/pool/1/2/3/123456789abcdef0. 2187 2188The MD5 digest might not be unique (especially since not all the file's 2189contents are used for files bigger than 256K). Different files that have 2190the same MD5 digest are stored with a trailing suffix "_n" where n is 2191an incrementing number starting at 0. So, for example, if two additional 2192files were identical to the first, except the last byte was different, 2193and assuming the file was larger than 1MB (so the MD5 digests are the 2194same but the files are actually different), the three files would be 2195stored as: 2196 2197 __TOPDIR__/pool/1/2/3/123456789abcdef0 2198 __TOPDIR__/pool/1/2/3/123456789abcdef0_0 2199 __TOPDIR__/pool/1/2/3/123456789abcdef0_1 2200 2201Both BackupPC_dump (actually, BackupPC_tarExtract) and BackupPC_link are 2202responsible for checking newly backed up files against the pool. For 2203each file, the MD5 digest is used to generate a file name in the pool 2204directory. If the file exists in the pool, the contents are compared. 2205If there is no match, additional files ending in "_n" are checked. 2206(Actually, BackupPC_tarExtract compares multiple candidate files in 2207parallel.) If the file contents exactly match, the file is created by 2208simply making a hard link to the pool file (this is done by 2209BackupPC_tarExtract as the backup proceeds). Otherwise, 2210BackupPC_tarExtract writes the new file to disk and a new hard link is 2211made in the pool to the file (this is done later by BackupPC_link). 2212 2213Therefore, every file in the pool will have at least 2 hard links 2214(one for the pool file and one for the backup file below __TOPDIR__/pc). 2215Identical files from different backups or PCs will all be linked to 2216the same file. When old backups are deleted, some files in the pool 2217might only have one link. BackupPC_nightly checks the entire pool 2218and removes all files that have only a single link, thereby recovering 2219the storage for that file. 2220 2221One other issue: zero length files are not pooled, since there are a lot 2222of these files and on most file systems it doesn't save any disk space 2223to turn these files into hard links. 2224 2225=item __TOPDIR__/cpool 2226 2227All compressed files from PC backups are stored below __TOPDIR__/cpool. 2228Its layout is the same as __TOPDIR__/pool, and the hashing function 2229is the same (and, importantly, based on the uncompressed file, not 2230the compressed file). 2231 2232=item __TOPDIR__/pc/$host 2233 2234For each PC $host, all the backups for that PC are stored below 2235the directory __TOPDIR__/pc/$host. This directory contains the 2236following files: 2237 2238=over 4 2239 2240=item LOG 2241 2242Current log file for this PC from BackupPC_dump. 2243 2244=item LOG.DDMMYYYY or LOG.DDMMYYYY.z 2245 2246Last month's log file. Log files are aged monthly and compressed 2247(if compression is enabled), and old LOG files are deleted. 2248In earlier versions of BackupPC these files used to have 2249a suffix of 0, 1, .... 2250 2251=item XferERR or XferERR.z 2252 2253Output from the transport program (ie: smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp) 2254for the most recent failed backup. 2255 2256=item new 2257 2258Subdirectory in which the current backup is stored. This 2259directory is renamed if the backup succeeds. 2260 2261=item XferLOG or XferLOG.z 2262 2263Output from the transport program (ie: smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp) 2264for the current backup. 2265 2266=item nnn (an integer) 2267 2268Successful backups are in directories numbered sequentially starting at 0. 2269 2270=item XferLOG.nnn or XferLOG.nnn.z 2271 2272Output from the transport program (ie: smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp) 2273corresponding to backup number nnn. 2274 2275=item RestoreInfo.nnn 2276 2277Information about restore request #nnn including who, what, when, and 2278why. This file is in Data::Dumper format. (Note that the restore 2279numbers are not related to the backup number.) 2280 2281=item RestoreLOG.nnn.z 2282 2283Output from smbclient, tar or rsync during restore #nnn. (Note that the restore 2284numbers are not related to the backup number.) 2285 2286=item ArchiveInfo.nnn 2287 2288Information about archive request #nnn including who, what, when, and 2289why. This file is in Data::Dumper format. (Note that the archive 2290numbers are not related to the restore or backup number.) 2291 2292=item ArchiveLOG.nnn.z 2293 2294Output from archive #nnn. (Note that the archive numbers are not related 2295to the backup or restore number.) 2296 2297=item config.pl 2298 2299Old location of optional configuration settings specific to this host. 2300Settings in this file override the main configuration file. 2301In new versions of BackupPC the per-host configuration files are 2302stored in __CONFDIR__/pc/HOST.pl. 2303 2304=item backups 2305 2306A tab-delimited ascii table listing information about each successful 2307backup, one per row. The columns are: 2308 2309=over 4 2310 2311=item num 2312 2313The backup number, an integer that starts at 0 and increments 2314for each successive backup. The corresponding backup is stored 2315in the directory num (eg: if this field is 5, then the backup is 2316stored in __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/5). 2317 2318=item type 2319 2320Set to "full" or "incr" for full or incremental backup. 2321 2322=item startTime 2323 2324Start time of the backup in unix seconds. 2325 2326=item endTime 2327 2328Stop time of the backup in unix seconds. 2329 2330=item nFiles 2331 2332Number of files backed up (as reported by smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp). 2333 2334=item size 2335 2336Total file size backed up (as reported by smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp). 2337 2338=item nFilesExist 2339 2340Number of files that were already in the pool 2341(as determined by BackupPC_dump and BackupPC_link). 2342 2343=item sizeExist 2344 2345Total size of files that were already in the pool 2346(as determined by BackupPC_dump and BackupPC_link). 2347 2348=item nFilesNew 2349 2350Number of files that were not in the pool 2351(as determined by BackupPC_link). 2352 2353=item sizeNew 2354 2355Total size of files that were not in the pool 2356(as determined by BackupPC_link). 2357 2358=item xferErrs 2359 2360Number of errors or warnings from smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp. 2361 2362=item xferBadFile 2363 2364Number of errors from smbclient that were bad file errors (zero otherwise). 2365 2366=item xferBadShare 2367 2368Number of errors from smbclient that were bad share errors (zero otherwise). 2369 2370=item tarErrs 2371 2372Number of errors from BackupPC_tarExtract. 2373 2374=item compress 2375 2376The compression level used on this backup. Zero or empty means no 2377compression. 2378 2379=item sizeExistComp 2380 2381Total compressed size of files that were already in the pool 2382(as determined by BackupPC_dump and BackupPC_link). 2383 2384=item sizeNewComp 2385 2386Total compressed size of files that were not in the pool 2387(as determined by BackupPC_link). 2388 2389=item noFill 2390 2391Set if this backup has not been filled in with the most recent 2392previous filled or full backup. See $Conf{IncrFill}. 2393 2394=item fillFromNum 2395 2396If this backup was filled (ie: noFill is 0) then this is the 2397number of the backup that it was filled from 2398 2399=item mangle 2400 2401Set if this backup has mangled file names and attributes. Always 2402true for backups in v1.4.0 and above. False for all backups prior 2403to v1.4.0. 2404 2405=item xferMethod 2406 2407Set to the value of $Conf{XferMethod} when this dump was done. 2408 2409=item level 2410 2411The level of this dump. A full dump is level 0. Currently incrementals 2412are 1. But when multi-level incrementals are supported this will reflect 2413each dump's incremental level. 2414 2415=back 2416 2417=item restores 2418 2419A tab-delimited ascii table listing information about each requested 2420restore, one per row. The columns are: 2421 2422=over 4 2423 2424=item num 2425 2426Restore number (matches the suffix of the RestoreInfo.nnn and 2427RestoreLOG.nnn.z file), unrelated to the backup number. 2428 2429=item startTime 2430 2431Start time of the restore in unix seconds. 2432 2433=item endTime 2434 2435End time of the restore in unix seconds. 2436 2437=item result 2438 2439Result (ok or failed). 2440 2441=item errorMsg 2442 2443Error message if restore failed. 2444 2445=item nFiles 2446 2447Number of files restored. 2448 2449=item size 2450 2451Size in bytes of the restored files. 2452 2453=item tarCreateErrs 2454 2455Number of errors from BackupPC_tarCreate during restore. 2456 2457=item xferErrs 2458 2459Number of errors from smbclient, tar, rsync or ftp during restore. 2460 2461=back 2462 2463=item archives 2464 2465A tab-delimited ascii table listing information about each requested 2466archive, one per row. The columns are: 2467 2468=over 4 2469 2470=item num 2471 2472Archive number (matches the suffix of the ArchiveInfo.nnn and 2473ArchiveLOG.nnn.z file), unrelated to the backup or restore number. 2474 2475=item startTime 2476 2477Start time of the restore in unix seconds. 2478 2479=item endTime 2480 2481End time of the restore in unix seconds. 2482 2483=item result 2484 2485Result (ok or failed). 2486 2487=item errorMsg 2488 2489Error message if archive failed. 2490 2491=back 2492 2493=back 2494 2495=back 2496 2497=back 2498 2499=head2 Compressed file format 2500 2501The compressed file format is as generated by Compress::Zlib::deflate 2502with one minor, but important, tweak. Since Compress::Zlib::inflate 2503fully inflates its argument in memory, it could take large amounts of 2504memory if it was inflating a highly compressed file. For example, a 2505200MB file of 0x0 bytes compresses to around 200K bytes. If 2506Compress::Zlib::inflate was called with this single 200K buffer, it 2507would need to allocate 200MB of memory to return the result. 2508 2509BackupPC watches how efficiently a file is compressing. If a big file 2510has very high compression (meaning it will use too much memory when it 2511is inflated), BackupPC calls the flush() method, which gracefully 2512completes the current compression. BackupPC then starts another 2513deflate and simply appends the output file. So the BackupPC compressed 2514file format is one or more concatenated deflations/flushes. The specific 2515ratios that BackupPC uses is that if a 6MB chunk compresses to less 2516than 64K then a flush will be done. 2517 2518Back to the example of the 200MB file of 0x0 bytes. Adding flushes 2519every 6MB adds only 200 or so bytes to the 200K output. So the 2520storage cost of flushing is negligible. 2521 2522To easily decompress a BackupPC compressed file, the script 2523BackupPC_zcat can be found in __INSTALLDIR__/bin. For each 2524file name argument it inflates the file and writes it to stdout. 2525 2526=head2 Rsync checksum caching 2527 2528An incremental backup with rsync compares attributes on the client 2529with the last full backup. Any files with identical attributes 2530are skipped. A full backup with rsync sets the --ignore-times 2531option, which causes every file to be examined independent of 2532attributes. 2533 2534Each file is examined by generating block checksums (default 2K 2535blocks) on the receiving side (that's the BackupPC side), sending 2536those checksums to the client, where the remote rsync matches those 2537checksums with the corresponding file. The matching blocks and new 2538data is sent back, allowing the client file to be reassembled. 2539A checksum for the entire file is sent to as an extra check the 2540the reconstructed file is correct. 2541 2542This results in significant disk IO and computation for BackupPC: 2543every file in a full backup, or any file with non-matching attributes 2544in an incremental backup, needs to be uncompressed, block checksums 2545computed and sent. Then the receiving side reassembles the file and 2546has to verify the whole-file checksum. Even if the file is identical, 2547prior to 2.1.0, BackupPC had to read and uncompress the file twice, 2548once to compute the block checksums and later to verify the whole-file 2549checksum. 2550 2551Starting in 2.1.0, BackupPC supports optional checksum caching, 2552which means the block and file checksums only need to be computed 2553once for each file. This results in a significant performance 2554improvement. This only works for compressed pool files. 2555It is enabled by adding 2556 2557 '--checksum-seed=32761', 2558 2559to $Conf{RsyncArgs} and $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs}. 2560 2561Rsync versions prior to and including rsync-2.6.2 need a small patch to 2562add support for the --checksum-seed option. This patch is available in 2563the cygwin-rsyncd package at L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net>. 2564This patch is already included in rsync CVS, so it will be standard 2565in future versions of rsync. 2566 2567When this option is present, BackupPC will add block and file checksums 2568to the compressed pool file the next time a pool file is used and it 2569doesn't already have cached checksums. The first time a new file is 2570written to the pool, the checksums are not appended. The next time 2571checksums are needed for a file, they are computed and added. So the 2572full performance benefit of checksum caching won't be noticed until the 2573third time a pool file is used (eg: the third full backup). 2574 2575With checksum caching enabled, there is a risk that should a file's contents 2576in the pool be corrupted due to a disk problem, but the cached checksums 2577are still correct, the corruption will not be detected by a full backup, 2578since the file contents are no longer read and compared. To reduce the 2579chance that this remains undetected, BackupPC can recheck cached checksums 2580for a fraction of the files. This fraction is set with the 2581$Conf{RsyncCsumCacheVerifyProb} setting. The default value of 0.01 means 2582that 1% of the time a file's checksums are read, the checksums are verified. 2583This reduces performance slightly, but, over time, ensures that files 2584contents are in sync with the cached checksums. 2585 2586The format of the cached checksum data can be discovered by looking at 2587the code. Basically, the first byte of the compressed file is changed 2588to denote that checksums are appended. The block and file checksum 2589data, plus some other information and magic word, are appended to the 2590compressed file. This allows the cache update to be done in-place. 2591 2592=head2 File name mangling 2593 2594Backup file names are stored in "mangled" form. Each node of 2595a path is preceded by "f" (mnemonic: file), and special characters 2596(\n, \r, % and /) are URI-encoded as "%xx", where xx is the ascii 2597character's hex value. So c:/craig/example.txt is now stored as 2598fc/fcraig/fexample.txt. 2599 2600This was done mainly so meta-data could be stored alongside the backup 2601files without name collisions. In particular, the attributes for the 2602files in a directory are stored in a file called "attrib", and mangling 2603avoids file name collisions (I discarded the idea of having a duplicate 2604directory tree for every backup just to store the attributes). Other 2605meta-data (eg: rsync checksums) could be stored in file names preceded 2606by, eg, "c". There are two other benefits to mangling: the share name 2607might contain "/" (eg: "/home/craig" for tar transport), and I wanted 2608that represented as a single level in the storage tree. Secondly, as 2609files are written to NewFileList for later processing by BackupPC_link, 2610embedded newlines in the file's path will cause problems which are 2611avoided by mangling. 2612 2613The CGI script undoes the mangling, so it is invisible to the user. 2614Old (unmangled) backups are still supported by the CGI 2615interface. 2616 2617=head2 Special files 2618 2619Linux/unix file systems support several special file types: symbolic 2620links, character and block device files, fifos (pipes) and unix-domain 2621sockets. All except unix-domain sockets are supported by BackupPC 2622(there's no point in backing up or restoring unix-domain sockets since 2623they only have meaning after a process creates them). Symbolic links are 2624stored as a plain file whose contents are the contents of the link (not 2625the file it points to). This file is compressed and pooled like any 2626normal file. Character and block device files are also stored as plain 2627files, whose contents are two integers separated by a comma; the numbers 2628are the major and minor device number. These files are compressed and 2629pooled like any normal file. Fifo files are stored as empty plain files 2630(which are not pooled since they have zero size). In all cases, the 2631original file type is stored in the attrib file so it can be correctly 2632restored. 2633 2634Hardlinks are also supported. When GNU tar first encounters a file with 2635more than one link (ie: hardlinks) it dumps it as a regular file. When 2636it sees the second and subsequent hardlinks to the same file, it dumps 2637just the hardlink information. BackupPC correctly recognizes these 2638hardlinks and stores them just like symlinks: a regular text file 2639whose contents is the path of the file linked to. The CGI script 2640will download the original file when you click on a hardlink. 2641 2642Also, BackupPC_tarCreate has enough magic to re-create the hardlinks 2643dynamically based on whether or not the original file and hardlinks 2644are both included in the tar file. For example, imagine a/b/x is a 2645hardlink to a/c/y. If you use BackupPC_tarCreate to restore directory 2646a, then the tar file will include a/b/x as the original file and a/c/y 2647will be a hardlink to a/b/x. If, instead you restore a/c, then the 2648tar file will include a/c/y as the original file, not a hardlink. 2649 2650=head2 Attribute file format 2651 2652The unix attributes for the contents of a directory (all the files and 2653directories in that directory) are stored in a file called attrib. 2654There is a single attrib file for each directory in a backup. 2655For example, if c:/craig contains a single file c:/craig/example.txt, 2656that file would be stored as fc/fcraig/fexample.txt and there would be an 2657attribute file in fc/fcraig/attrib (and also fc/attrib and ./attrib). 2658The file fc/fcraig/attrib would contain a single entry containing the 2659attributes for fc/fcraig/fexample.txt. 2660 2661The attrib file starts with a magic number, followed by the 2662concatenation of the following information for each file: 2663 2664=over 4 2665 2666=item * 2667 2668File name length in perl's pack "w" format (variable length base 128). 2669 2670=item * 2671 2672File name. 2673 2674=item * 2675 2676The unix file type, mode, uid, gid and file size divided by 4GB and 2677file size modulo 4GB (type mode uid gid sizeDiv4GB sizeMod4GB), 2678in perl's pack "w" format (variable length base 128). 2679 2680=item * 2681 2682The unix mtime (unix seconds) in perl's pack "N" format (32 bit integer). 2683 2684=back 2685 2686The attrib file is also compressed if compression is enabled. 2687See the lib/BackupPC/Attrib.pm module for full details. 2688 2689Attribute files are pooled just like normal backup files. This saves 2690space if all the files in a directory have the same attributes across 2691multiple backups, which is common. 2692 2693=head2 Optimizations 2694 2695BackupPC doesn't care about the access time of files in the pool 2696since it saves attribute meta-data separate from the files. Since 2697BackupPC mostly does reads from disk, maintaining the access time of 2698files generates a lot of unnecessary disk writes. So, provided 2699BackupPC has a dedicated data disk, you should consider mounting 2700BackupPC's data directory with the noatime (or, with Linux 2701kernels >=2.6.20, relatime) attribute (see mount(1)). 2702 2703=head2 Some Limitations 2704 2705BackupPC isn't perfect (but it is getting better). Please see 2706L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/faq/limitations.html> for a 2707discussion of some of BackupPC's limitations. 2708 2709=head2 Security issues 2710 2711Please see L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/faq/security.html> for a 2712discussion of some of various security issues. 2713 2714=head1 Configuration File 2715 2716The BackupPC configuration file resides in __CONFDIR__/config.pl. 2717Optional per-PC configuration files reside in __CONFDIR__/pc/$host.pl 2718(or __TOPDIR__/pc/$host/config.pl in non-FHS versions of BackupPC). 2719This file can be used to override settings just for a particular PC. 2720 2721=head2 Modifying the main configuration file 2722 2723The configuration file is a perl script that is executed by BackupPC, so 2724you should be careful to preserve the file syntax (punctuation, quotes 2725etc) when you edit it. It is recommended that you use CVS, RCS or some 2726other method of source control for changing config.pl. 2727 2728BackupPC reads or re-reads the main configuration file and 2729the hosts file in three cases: 2730 2731=over 4 2732 2733=item * 2734 2735Upon startup. 2736 2737=item * 2738 2739When BackupPC is sent a HUP (-1) signal. Assuming you installed the 2740init.d script, you can also do this with "/etc/init.d/backuppc reload". 2741 2742=item * 2743 2744When the modification time of config.pl file changes. BackupPC 2745checks the modification time once during each regular wakeup. 2746 2747=back 2748 2749Whenever you change the configuration file you can either do 2750a kill -HUP BackupPC_pid or simply wait until the next regular 2751wakeup period. 2752 2753Each time the configuration file is re-read a message is reported in the 2754LOG file, so you can tail it (or view it via the CGI interface) to make 2755sure your kill -HUP worked. Errors in parsing the configuration file are 2756also reported in the LOG file. 2757 2758The optional per-PC configuration file (__CONFDIR__/pc/$host.pl or 2759__TOPDIR__/pc/$host/config.pl in non-FHS versions of BackupPC) 2760is read whenever it is needed by BackupPC_dump, BackupPC_link and others. 2761 2762=head1 Configuration Parameters 2763 2764The configuration parameters are divided into five general groups. 2765The first group (general server configuration) provides general 2766configuration for BackupPC. The next two groups describe what to 2767backup, when to do it, and how long to keep it. The fourth group 2768are settings for email reminders, and the final group contains 2769settings for the CGI interface. 2770 2771All configuration settings in the second through fifth groups can 2772be overridden by the per-PC config.pl file. 2773 2774=head2 General server configuration 2775 2776=over 4 2777 2778=item $Conf{ServerHost} = ''; 2779 2780Host name on which the BackupPC server is running. 2781 2782=item $Conf{ServerPort} = -1; 2783 2784TCP port number on which the BackupPC server listens for and accepts 2785connections. Normally this should be disabled (set to -1). The TCP 2786port is only needed if apache runs on a different machine from BackupPC. 2787In that case, set this to any spare port number over 1024 (eg: 2359). 2788If you enable the TCP port, make sure you set $Conf{ServerMesgSecret} 2789too! 2790 2791=item $Conf{ServerMesgSecret} = ''; 2792 2793Shared secret to make the TCP port secure. Set this to a hard to guess 2794string if you enable the TCP port (ie: $Conf{ServerPort} > 0). 2795 2796To avoid possible attacks via the TCP socket interface, every client 2797message is protected by an MD5 digest. The MD5 digest includes four 2798items: 2799 - a seed that is sent to the client when the connection opens 2800 - a sequence number that increments for each message 2801 - a shared secret that is stored in $Conf{ServerMesgSecret} 2802 - the message itself. 2803 2804The message is sent in plain text preceded by the MD5 digest. A 2805snooper can see the plain-text seed sent by BackupPC and plain-text 2806message from the client, but cannot construct a valid MD5 digest since 2807the secret $Conf{ServerMesgSecret} is unknown. A replay attack is 2808not possible since the seed changes on a per-connection and 2809per-message basis. 2810 2811=item $Conf{MyPath} = '/bin'; 2812 2813PATH setting for BackupPC. An explicit value is necessary 2814for taint mode. Value shouldn't matter too much since 2815all execs use explicit paths. However, taint mode in perl 2816will complain if this directory is world writable. 2817 2818=item $Conf{UmaskMode} = 027; 2819 2820Permission mask for directories and files created by BackupPC. 2821Default value prevents any access from group other, and prevents 2822group write. 2823 2824=item $Conf{WakeupSchedule} = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]; 2825 2826Times at which we wake up, check all the PCs, and schedule necessary 2827backups. Times are measured in hours since midnight. Can be 2828fractional if necessary (eg: 4.25 means 4:15am). 2829 2830If the hosts you are backing up are always connected to the network 2831you might have only one or two wakeups each night. This will keep 2832the backup activity after hours. On the other hand, if you are backing 2833up laptops that are only intermittently connected to the network you 2834will want to have frequent wakeups (eg: hourly) to maximize the chance 2835that each laptop is backed up. 2836 2837Examples: 2838 2839 $Conf{WakeupSchedule} = [22.5]; # once per day at 10:30 pm. 2840 $Conf{WakeupSchedule} = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22]; # every 2 hours 2841 2842The default value is every hour except midnight. 2843 2844The first entry of $Conf{WakeupSchedule} is when BackupPC_nightly is run. 2845You might want to re-arrange the entries in $Conf{WakeupSchedule} 2846(they don't have to be ascending) so that the first entry is when 2847you want BackupPC_nightly to run (eg: when you don't expect a lot 2848of regular backups to run). 2849 2850=item $Conf{MaxBackups} = 4; 2851 2852Maximum number of simultaneous backups to run. If there 2853are no user backup requests then this is the maximum number 2854of simultaneous backups. 2855 2856=item $Conf{MaxUserBackups} = 4; 2857 2858Additional number of simultaneous backups that users can run. 2859As many as $Conf{MaxBackups} + $Conf{MaxUserBackups} requests can 2860run at the same time. 2861 2862=item $Conf{MaxPendingCmds} = 15; 2863 2864Maximum number of pending link commands. New backups will only be 2865started if there are no more than $Conf{MaxPendingCmds} plus 2866$Conf{MaxBackups} number of pending link commands, plus running jobs. 2867This limit is to make sure BackupPC doesn't fall too far behind in 2868running BackupPC_link commands. 2869 2870=item $Conf{CmdQueueNice} = 10; 2871 2872Nice level at which CmdQueue commands (eg: BackupPC_link and 2873BackupPC_nightly) are run at. 2874 2875=item $Conf{MaxBackupPCNightlyJobs} = 2; 2876 2877How many BackupPC_nightly processes to run in parallel. 2878 2879Each night, at the first wakeup listed in $Conf{WakeupSchedule}, 2880BackupPC_nightly is run. Its job is to remove unneeded files 2881in the pool, ie: files that only have one link. To avoid race 2882conditions, BackupPC_nightly and BackupPC_link cannot run at 2883the same time. Starting in v3.0.0, BackupPC_nightly can run 2884concurrently with backups (BackupPC_dump). 2885 2886So to reduce the elapsed time, you might want to increase this 2887setting to run several BackupPC_nightly processes in parallel 2888(eg: 4, or even 8). 2889 2890=item $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} = 1; 2891 2892How many days (runs) it takes BackupPC_nightly to traverse the 2893entire pool. Normally this is 1, which means every night it runs, 2894it does traverse the entire pool removing unused pool files. 2895 2896Other valid values are 2, 4, 8, 16. This causes BackupPC_nightly to 2897traverse 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16th of the pool each night, meaning it 2898takes 2, 4, 8 or 16 days to completely traverse the pool. The 2899advantage is that each night the running time of BackupPC_nightly 2900is reduced roughly in proportion, since the total job is split 2901over multiple days. The disadvantage is that unused pool files 2902take longer to get deleted, which will slightly increase disk 2903usage. 2904 2905Note that even when $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} > 1, BackupPC_nightly 2906still runs every night. It just does less work each time it runs. 2907 2908Examples: 2909 2910 2911 $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} = 1; # entire pool is checked every night 2912 2913 $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} = 2; # two days to complete pool check 2914 # (different half each night) 2915 2916 $Conf{BackupPCNightlyPeriod} = 4; # four days to complete pool check 2917 # (different quarter each night) 2918 2919=item $Conf{MaxOldLogFiles} = 14; 2920 2921Maximum number of log files we keep around in log directory. 2922These files are aged nightly. A setting of 14 means the log 2923directory will contain about 2 weeks of old log files, in 2924particular at most the files LOG, LOG.0, LOG.1, ... LOG.13 2925(except today's LOG, these files will have a .z extension if 2926compression is on). 2927 2928If you decrease this number after BackupPC has been running for a 2929while you will have to manually remove the older log files. 2930 2931=item $Conf{DfPath} = ''; 2932 2933Full path to the df command. Security caution: normal users 2934should not allowed to write to this file or directory. 2935 2936=item $Conf{DfCmd} = '$dfPath $topDir'; 2937 2938Command to run df. The following variables are substituted at run-time: 2939 2940 $dfPath path to df ($Conf{DfPath}) 2941 $topDir top-level BackupPC data directory 2942 2943Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 2944needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 2945redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 2946 2947=item $Conf{SplitPath} = ''; 2948 2949=item $Conf{ParPath} = ''; 2950 2951=item $Conf{CatPath} = ''; 2952 2953=item $Conf{GzipPath} = ''; 2954 2955=item $Conf{Bzip2Path} = ''; 2956 2957Full path to various commands for archiving 2958 2959=item $Conf{DfMaxUsagePct} = 95; 2960 2961Maximum threshold for disk utilization on the __TOPDIR__ filesystem. 2962If the output from $Conf{DfPath} reports a percentage larger than 2963this number then no new regularly scheduled backups will be run. 2964However, user requested backups (which are usually incremental and 2965tend to be small) are still performed, independent of disk usage. 2966Also, currently running backups will not be terminated when the disk 2967usage exceeds this number. 2968 2969=item $Conf{TrashCleanSleepSec} = 300; 2970 2971How long BackupPC_trashClean sleeps in seconds between each check 2972of the trash directory. Once every 5 minutes should be reasonable. 2973 2974=item $Conf{DHCPAddressRanges} = []; 2975 2976List of DHCP address ranges we search looking for PCs to backup. 2977This is an array of hashes for each class C address range. 2978This is only needed if hosts in the conf/hosts file have the 2979dhcp flag set. 2980 2981Examples: 2982 2983 # to specify 192.10.10.20 to 192.10.10.250 as the DHCP address pool 2984 $Conf{DHCPAddressRanges} = [ 2985 { 2986 ipAddrBase => '192.10.10', 2987 first => 20, 2988 last => 250, 2989 }, 2990 ]; 2991 # to specify two pools (192.10.10.20-250 and 192.10.11.10-50) 2992 $Conf{DHCPAddressRanges} = [ 2993 { 2994 ipAddrBase => '192.10.10', 2995 first => 20, 2996 last => 250, 2997 }, 2998 { 2999 ipAddrBase => '192.10.11', 3000 first => 10, 3001 last => 50, 3002 }, 3003 ]; 3004 3005=item $Conf{BackupPCUser} = ''; 3006 3007The BackupPC user. 3008 3009=item $Conf{TopDir} = ''; 3010 3011=item $Conf{ConfDir} = ''; 3012 3013=item $Conf{LogDir} = ''; 3014 3015=item $Conf{InstallDir} = ''; 3016 3017=item $Conf{CgiDir} = ''; 3018 3019Important installation directories: 3020 3021 TopDir - where all the backup data is stored 3022 ConfDir - where the main config and hosts files resides 3023 LogDir - where log files and other transient information 3024 InstallDir - where the bin, lib and doc installation dirs reside. 3025 Note: you cannot change this value since all the 3026 perl scripts include this path. You must reinstall 3027 with configure.pl to change InstallDir. 3028 CgiDir - Apache CGI directory for BackupPC_Admin 3029 3030Note: it is STRONGLY recommended that you don't change the 3031values here. These are set at installation time and are here 3032for reference and are used during upgrades. 3033 3034Instead of changing TopDir here it is recommended that you use 3035a symbolic link to the new location, or mount the new BackupPC 3036store at the existing $Conf{TopDir} setting. 3037 3038=item $Conf{BackupPCUserVerify} = 1; 3039 3040Whether BackupPC and the CGI script BackupPC_Admin verify that they 3041are really running as user $Conf{BackupPCUser}. If this flag is set 3042and the effective user id (euid) differs from $Conf{BackupPCUser} 3043then both scripts exit with an error. This catches cases where 3044BackupPC might be accidently started as root or the wrong user, 3045or if the CGI script is not installed correctly. 3046 3047=item $Conf{HardLinkMax} = 31999; 3048 3049Maximum number of hardlinks supported by the $TopDir file system 3050that BackupPC uses. Most linux or unix file systems should support 3051at least 32000 hardlinks per file, or 64000 in other cases. If a pool 3052file already has this number of hardlinks, a new pool file is created 3053so that new hardlinks can be accommodated. This limit will only 3054be hit if an identical file appears at least this number of times 3055across all the backups. 3056 3057=item $Conf{PerlModuleLoad} = undef; 3058 3059Advanced option for asking BackupPC to load additional perl modules. 3060Can be a list (array ref) of module names to load at startup. 3061 3062=item $Conf{ServerInitdPath} = ''; 3063 3064=item $Conf{ServerInitdStartCmd} = ''; 3065 3066Path to init.d script and command to use that script to start the 3067server from the CGI interface. The following variables are substituted 3068at run-time: 3069 3070 $sshPath path to ssh ($Conf{SshPath}) 3071 $serverHost same as $Conf{ServerHost} 3072 $serverInitdPath path to init.d script ($Conf{ServerInitdPath}) 3073 3074Example: 3075 3076 3077$Conf{ServerInitdPath} = '/etc/init.d/backuppc'; 3078$Conf{ServerInitdStartCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $serverHost' 3079 . ' $serverInitdPath start' 3080 . ' < /dev/null >& /dev/null'; 3081 3082Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3083needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3084redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3085 3086=back 3087 3088=head2 What to backup and when to do it 3089 3090=over 4 3091 3092=item $Conf{FullPeriod} = 6.97; 3093 3094Minimum period in days between full backups. A full dump will only be 3095done if at least this much time has elapsed since the last full dump, 3096and at least $Conf{IncrPeriod} days has elapsed since the last 3097successful dump. 3098 3099Typically this is set slightly less than an integer number of days. The 3100time taken for the backup, plus the granularity of $Conf{WakeupSchedule} 3101will make the actual backup interval a bit longer. 3102 3103=item $Conf{IncrPeriod} = 0.97; 3104 3105Minimum period in days between incremental backups (a user requested 3106incremental backup will be done anytime on demand). 3107 3108Typically this is set slightly less than an integer number of days. The 3109time taken for the backup, plus the granularity of $Conf{WakeupSchedule} 3110will make the actual backup interval a bit longer. 3111 3112=item $Conf{FullKeepCnt} = 1; 3113 3114Number of full backups to keep. Must be >= 1. 3115 3116In the steady state, each time a full backup completes successfully 3117the oldest one is removed. If this number is decreased, the 3118extra old backups will be removed. 3119 3120If filling of incremental dumps is off the oldest backup always 3121has to be a full (ie: filled) dump. This might mean one or two 3122extra full dumps are kept until the oldest incremental backups expire. 3123 3124Exponential backup expiry is also supported. This allows you to specify: 3125 3126 - num fulls to keep at intervals of 1 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, followed by 3127 - num fulls to keep at intervals of 2 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, 3128 - num fulls to keep at intervals of 4 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, 3129 - num fulls to keep at intervals of 8 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, 3130 - num fulls to keep at intervals of 16 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, 3131 3132and so on. This works by deleting every other full as each expiry 3133boundary is crossed. 3134 3135Exponential expiry is specified using an array for $Conf{FullKeepCnt}: 3136 3137 $Conf{FullKeepCnt} = [4, 2, 3]; 3138 3139Entry #n specifies how many fulls to keep at an interval of 31402^n * $Conf{FullPeriod} (ie: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ...). 3141 3142The example above specifies keeping 4 of the most recent full backups 3143(1 week interval) two full backups at 2 week intervals, and 3 full 3144backups at 4 week intervals, eg: 3145 3146 full 0 19 weeks old \ 3147 full 1 15 weeks old >--- 3 backups at 4 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3148 full 2 11 weeks old / 3149 full 3 7 weeks old \____ 2 backups at 2 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3150 full 4 5 weeks old / 3151 full 5 3 weeks old \ 3152 full 6 2 weeks old \___ 4 backups at 1 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3153 full 7 1 week old / 3154 full 8 current / 3155 3156On a given week the spacing might be less than shown as each backup 3157ages through each expiry period. For example, one week later, a 3158new full is completed and the oldest is deleted, giving: 3159 3160 full 0 16 weeks old \ 3161 full 1 12 weeks old >--- 3 backups at 4 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3162 full 2 8 weeks old / 3163 full 3 6 weeks old \____ 2 backups at 2 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3164 full 4 4 weeks old / 3165 full 5 3 weeks old \ 3166 full 6 2 weeks old \___ 4 backups at 1 * $Conf{FullPeriod} 3167 full 7 1 week old / 3168 full 8 current / 3169 3170You can specify 0 as a count (except in the first entry), and the 3171array can be as long as you wish. For example: 3172 3173 3174 $Conf{FullKeepCnt} = [4, 0, 4, 0, 0, 2]; 3175 3176This will keep 10 full dumps, 4 most recent at 1 * $Conf{FullPeriod}, 3177followed by 4 at an interval of 4 * $Conf{FullPeriod} (approx 1 month 3178apart), and then 2 at an interval of 32 * $Conf{FullPeriod} (approx 31797-8 months apart). 3180 3181Example: these two settings are equivalent and both keep just 3182the four most recent full dumps: 3183 3184 $Conf{FullKeepCnt} = 4; 3185 $Conf{FullKeepCnt} = [4]; 3186 3187=item $Conf{FullKeepCntMin} = 1; 3188 3189=item $Conf{FullAgeMax} = 90; 3190 3191Very old full backups are removed after $Conf{FullAgeMax} days. However, 3192we keep at least $Conf{FullKeepCntMin} full backups no matter how old 3193they are. 3194 3195Note that $Conf{FullAgeMax} will be increased to $Conf{FullKeepCnt} 3196times $Conf{FullPeriod} if $Conf{FullKeepCnt} specifies enough 3197full backups to exceed $Conf{FullAgeMax}. 3198 3199=item $Conf{IncrKeepCnt} = 6; 3200 3201Number of incremental backups to keep. Must be >= 1. 3202 3203In the steady state, each time an incr backup completes successfully 3204the oldest one is removed. If this number is decreased, the 3205extra old backups will be removed. 3206 3207=item $Conf{IncrKeepCntMin} = 1; 3208 3209=item $Conf{IncrAgeMax} = 30; 3210 3211Very old incremental backups are removed after $Conf{IncrAgeMax} days. 3212However, we keep at least $Conf{IncrKeepCntMin} incremental backups no 3213matter how old they are. 3214 3215=item $Conf{IncrLevels} = [1]; 3216 3217Level of each incremental. "Level" follows the terminology 3218of dump(1). A full backup has level 0. A new incremental 3219of level N will backup all files that have changed since 3220the most recent backup of a lower level. 3221 3222The entries of $Conf{IncrLevels} apply in order to each 3223incremental after each full backup. It wraps around until 3224the next full backup. For example, these two settings 3225have the same effect: 3226 3227 $Conf{IncrLevels} = [1, 2, 3]; 3228 $Conf{IncrLevels} = [1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3]; 3229 3230This means the 1st and 4th incrementals (level 1) go all 3231the way back to the full. The 2nd and 3rd (and 5th and 32326th) backups just go back to the immediate preceeding 3233incremental. 3234 3235Specifying a sequence of multi-level incrementals will 3236usually mean more than $Conf{IncrKeepCnt} incrementals will 3237need to be kept, since lower level incrementals are needed 3238to merge a complete view of a backup. For example, with 3239 3240 $Conf{FullPeriod} = 7; 3241 $Conf{IncrPeriod} = 1; 3242 $Conf{IncrKeepCnt} = 6; 3243 $Conf{IncrLevels} = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]; 3244 3245there will be up to 11 incrementals in this case: 3246 3247 backup #0 (full, level 0, oldest) 3248 backup #1 (incr, level 1) 3249 backup #2 (incr, level 2) 3250 backup #3 (incr, level 3) 3251 backup #4 (incr, level 4) 3252 backup #5 (incr, level 5) 3253 backup #6 (incr, level 6) 3254 backup #7 (full, level 0) 3255 backup #8 (incr, level 1) 3256 backup #9 (incr, level 2) 3257 backup #10 (incr, level 3) 3258 backup #11 (incr, level 4) 3259 backup #12 (incr, level 5, newest) 3260 3261Backup #1 (the oldest level 1 incremental) can't be deleted 3262since backups 2..6 depend on it. Those 6 incrementals can't 3263all be deleted since that would only leave 5 (#8..12). 3264When the next incremental happens (level 6), the complete 3265set of 6 older incrementals (#1..6) will be deleted, since 3266that maintains the required number ($Conf{IncrKeepCnt}) 3267of incrementals. This situation is reduced if you set 3268shorter chains of multi-level incrementals, eg: 3269 3270 $Conf{IncrLevels} = [1, 2, 3]; 3271 3272would only have up to 2 extra incremenals before all 3 3273are deleted. 3274 3275BackupPC as usual merges the full and the sequence 3276of incrementals together so each incremental can be 3277browsed and restored as though it is a complete backup. 3278If you specify a long chain of incrementals then more 3279backups need to be merged when browsing, restoring, 3280or getting the starting point for rsync backups. 3281In the example above (levels 1..6), browing backup 3282#6 requires 7 different backups (#0..6) to be merged. 3283 3284Because of this merging and the additional incrementals 3285that need to be kept, it is recommended that some 3286level 1 incrementals be included in $Conf{IncrLevels}. 3287 3288Prior to version 3.0 incrementals were always level 1, 3289meaning each incremental backed up all the files that 3290changed since the last full. 3291 3292=item $Conf{BackupsDisable} = 0; 3293 3294Disable all full and incremental backups. These settings are 3295useful for a client that is no longer being backed up 3296(eg: a retired machine), but you wish to keep the last 3297backups available for browsing or restoring to other machines. 3298 3299There are three values for $Conf{BackupsDisable}: 3300 3301 0 Backups are enabled. 3302 3303 1 Don't do any regular backups on this client. Manually 3304 requested backups (via the CGI interface) will still occur. 3305 3306 2 Don't do any backups on this client. Manually requested 3307 backups (via the CGI interface) will be ignored. 3308 3309In versions prior to 3.0 Backups were disabled by setting 3310$Conf{FullPeriod} to -1 or -2. 3311 3312=item $Conf{PartialAgeMax} = 3; 3313 3314A failed full backup is saved as a partial backup. The rsync 3315XferMethod can take advantage of the partial full when the next 3316backup is run. This parameter sets the age of the partial full 3317in days: if the partial backup is older than this number of 3318days, then rsync will ignore (not use) the partial full when 3319the next backup is run. If you set this to a negative value 3320then no partials will be saved. If you set this to 0, partials 3321will be saved, but will not be used by the next backup. 3322 3323The default setting of 3 days means that a partial older than 33243 days is ignored when the next full backup is done. 3325 3326=item $Conf{IncrFill} = 0; 3327 3328Whether incremental backups are filled. "Filling" means that the 3329most recent full (or filled) dump is merged into the new incremental 3330dump using hardlinks. This makes an incremental dump look like a 3331full dump. Prior to v1.03 all incremental backups were filled. 3332In v1.4.0 and later the default is off. 3333 3334BackupPC, and the cgi interface in particular, do the right thing on 3335un-filled incremental backups. It will correctly display the merged 3336incremental backup with the most recent filled backup, giving the 3337un-filled incremental backups a filled appearance. That means it 3338invisible to the user whether incremental dumps are filled or not. 3339 3340Filling backups takes a little extra disk space, and it does cost 3341some extra disk activity for filling, and later removal. Filling 3342is no longer useful, since file mangling and compression doesn't 3343make a filled backup very useful. It's likely the filling option 3344will be removed from future versions: filling will be delegated to 3345the display and extraction of backup data. 3346 3347If filling is off, BackupPC makes sure that the oldest backup is 3348a full, otherwise the following incremental backups will be 3349incomplete. This might mean an extra full backup has to be 3350kept until the following incremental backups expire. 3351 3352The default is off. You can turn this on or off at any 3353time without affecting existing backups. 3354 3355=item $Conf{RestoreInfoKeepCnt} = 10; 3356 3357Number of restore logs to keep. BackupPC remembers information about 3358each restore request. This number per client will be kept around before 3359the oldest ones are pruned. 3360 3361Note: files/dirs delivered via Zip or Tar downloads don't count as 3362restores. Only the first restore option (where the files and dirs 3363are written to the host) count as restores that are logged. 3364 3365=item $Conf{ArchiveInfoKeepCnt} = 10; 3366 3367Number of archive logs to keep. BackupPC remembers information 3368about each archive request. This number per archive client will 3369be kept around before the oldest ones are pruned. 3370 3371=item $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = undef; 3372 3373List of directories or files to backup. If this is defined, only these 3374directories or files will be backed up. 3375 3376When editing from the web interface, you should add a valid ShareName 3377(based on $Conf{XferMethod}), and then enter the directories specific 3378to that ShareName. A special ShareName "*" matches any ShareName that 3379doesn't have an explicit entry. 3380 3381For Smb, only one of $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} and $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} 3382can be specified per share. If both are set for a particular share, then 3383$Conf{BackupFilesOnly} takes precedence and $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} 3384is ignored. 3385 3386This can be set to a string, an array of strings, or, in the case 3387of multiple shares, a hash of strings or arrays. A hash is used 3388to give a list of directories or files to backup for each share 3389(the share name is the key). If this is set to just a string or 3390array, and $Conf{SmbShareName} contains multiple share names, then 3391the setting is assumed to apply all shares. 3392 3393If a hash is used, a special key "*" means it applies to all 3394shares that don't have a specific entry. 3395 3396Examples: 3397 3398 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = '/myFiles'; 3399 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = ['/myFiles']; # same as first example 3400 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = ['/myFiles', '/important']; 3401 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = { 3402 'c' => ['/myFiles', '/important'], # these are for 'c' share 3403 'd' => ['/moreFiles', '/archive'], # these are for 'd' share 3404 }; 3405 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = { 3406 'c' => ['/myFiles', '/important'], # these are for 'c' share 3407 '*' => ['/myFiles', '/important'], # these are other shares 3408 }; 3409 3410=item $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = undef; 3411 3412List of directories or files to exclude from the backup. For Smb, 3413only one of $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} and $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} 3414can be specified per share. If both are set for a particular share, 3415then $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} takes precedence and 3416$Conf{BackupFilesExclude} is ignored. 3417 3418When editing from the web interface, you should add a valid ShareName 3419(based on $Conf{XferMethod}), and then enter the directories or files 3420specific to that ShareName. A special ShareName "*" matches any 3421ShareName that doesn't have an explicit entry. 3422 3423This can be set to a string, an array of strings, or, in the case 3424of multiple shares, a hash of strings or arrays. A hash is used 3425to give a list of directories or files to exclude for each share 3426(the share name is the key). If this is set to just a string or 3427array, and $Conf{SmbShareName} contains multiple share names, then 3428the setting is assumed to apply to all shares. 3429 3430The exact behavior is determined by the underlying transport program, 3431smbclient or tar. For smbclient the exlclude file list is passed into 3432the X option. Simple shell wild-cards using "*" or "?" are allowed. 3433 3434For tar, if the exclude file contains a "/" it is assumed to be anchored 3435at the start of the string. Since all the tar paths start with "./", 3436BackupPC prepends a "." if the exclude file starts with a "/". Note 3437that GNU tar version >= 1.13.7 is required for the exclude option to 3438work correctly. For linux or unix machines you should add 3439"/proc" to $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} unless you have specified 3440--one-file-system in $Conf{TarClientCmd} or --one-file-system in 3441$Conf{RsyncArgs}. Also, for tar, do not use a trailing "/" in 3442the directory name: a trailing "/" causes the name to not match 3443and the directory will not be excluded. 3444 3445Users report that for smbclient you should specify a directory 3446followed by "/*", eg: "/proc/*", instead of just "/proc". 3447 3448FTP servers are traversed recursively so excluding directories will 3449also exclude its contents. You can use the wildcard characters "*" 3450and "?" to define files for inclusion and exclusion. Both 3451attributes $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} and $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} can 3452be defined for the same share. 3453 3454If a hash is used, a special key "*" means it applies to all 3455shares that don't have a specific entry. 3456 3457Examples: 3458 3459 $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = '/temp'; 3460 $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = ['/temp']; # same as first example 3461 $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = ['/temp', '/winnt/tmp']; 3462 $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = { 3463 'c' => ['/temp', '/winnt/tmp'], # these are for 'c' share 3464 'd' => ['/junk', '/dont_back_this_up'], # these are for 'd' share 3465 }; 3466 $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = { 3467 'c' => ['/temp', '/winnt/tmp'], # these are for 'c' share 3468 '*' => ['/junk', '/dont_back_this_up'], # these are for other shares 3469 }; 3470 3471=item $Conf{BlackoutBadPingLimit} = 3; 3472 3473=item $Conf{BlackoutGoodCnt} = 7; 3474 3475PCs that are always or often on the network can be backed up after 3476hours, to reduce PC, network and server load during working hours. For 3477each PC a count of consecutive good pings is maintained. Once a PC has 3478at least $Conf{BlackoutGoodCnt} consecutive good pings it is subject 3479to "blackout" and not backed up during hours and days specified by 3480$Conf{BlackoutPeriods}. 3481 3482To allow for periodic rebooting of a PC or other brief periods when a 3483PC is not on the network, a number of consecutive bad pings is allowed 3484before the good ping count is reset. This parameter is 3485$Conf{BlackoutBadPingLimit}. 3486 3487Note that bad and good pings don't occur with the same interval. If a 3488machine is always on the network, it will only be pinged roughly once 3489every $Conf{IncrPeriod} (eg: once per day). So a setting for 3490$Conf{BlackoutGoodCnt} of 7 means it will take around 7 days for a 3491machine to be subject to blackout. On the other hand, if a ping is 3492failed, it will be retried roughly every time BackupPC wakes up, eg, 3493every one or two hours. So a setting for $Conf{BlackoutBadPingLimit} of 34943 means that the PC will lose its blackout status after 3-6 hours of 3495unavailability. 3496 3497To disable the blackout feature set $Conf{BlackoutGoodCnt} to a negative 3498value. A value of 0 will make all machines subject to blackout. But 3499if you don't want to do any backups during the day it would be easier 3500to just set $Conf{WakeupSchedule} to a restricted schedule. 3501 3502=item $Conf{BlackoutPeriods} = [ ... ]; 3503 3504One or more blackout periods can be specified. If a client is 3505subject to blackout then no regular (non-manual) backups will 3506be started during any of these periods. hourBegin and hourEnd 3507specify hours fro midnight and weekDays is a list of days of 3508the week where 0 is Sunday, 1 is Monday etc. 3509 3510For example: 3511 3512 3513 $Conf{BlackoutPeriods} = [ 3514 { 3515 hourBegin => 7.0, 3516 hourEnd => 19.5, 3517 weekDays => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 3518 }, 3519 ]; 3520 3521specifies one blackout period from 7:00am to 7:30pm local time 3522on Mon-Fri. 3523 3524The blackout period can also span midnight by setting 3525hourBegin > hourEnd, eg: 3526 3527 $Conf{BlackoutPeriods} = [ 3528 { 3529 hourBegin => 7.0, 3530 hourEnd => 19.5, 3531 weekDays => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 3532 }, 3533 { 3534 hourBegin => 23, 3535 hourEnd => 5, 3536 weekDays => [5, 6], 3537 }, 3538 ]; 3539 3540This specifies one blackout period from 7:00am to 7:30pm local time 3541on Mon-Fri, and a second period from 11pm to 5am on Friday and 3542Saturday night. 3543 3544=item $Conf{BackupZeroFilesIsFatal} = 1; 3545 3546A backup of a share that has zero files is considered fatal. This is 3547used to catch miscellaneous Xfer errors that result in no files being 3548backed up. If you have shares that might be empty (and therefore an 3549empty backup is valid) you should set this flag to 0. 3550 3551=back 3552 3553=head2 How to backup a client 3554 3555=over 4 3556 3557=item $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'; 3558 3559What transport method to use to backup each host. If you have 3560a mixed set of WinXX and linux/unix hosts you will need to override 3561this in the per-PC config.pl. 3562 3563The valid values are: 3564 3565 - 'smb': backup and restore via smbclient and the SMB protocol. 3566 Easiest choice for WinXX. 3567 3568 - 'rsync': backup and restore via rsync (via rsh or ssh). 3569 Best choice for linux/unix. Good choice also for WinXX. 3570 3571 - 'rsyncd': backup and restore via rsync daemon on the client. 3572 Best choice for linux/unix if you have rsyncd running on 3573 the client. Good choice also for WinXX. 3574 3575 - 'tar': backup and restore via tar, tar over ssh, rsh or nfs. 3576 Good choice for linux/unix. 3577 3578 - 'archive': host is a special archive host. Backups are not done. 3579 An archive host is used to archive other host's backups 3580 to permanent media, such as tape, CDR or DVD. 3581 3582 3583=item $Conf{XferLogLevel} = 1; 3584 3585Level of verbosity in Xfer log files. 0 means be quiet, 1 will give 3586will give one line per file, 2 will also show skipped files on 3587incrementals, higher values give more output. 3588 3589=item $Conf{ClientCharset} = ''; 3590 3591Filename charset encoding on the client. BackupPC uses utf8 3592on the server for filename encoding. If this is empty, then 3593utf8 is assumed and client filenames will not be modified. 3594If set to a different encoding then filenames will converted 3595to/from utf8 automatically during backup and restore. 3596 3597If the file names displayed in the browser (eg: accents or special 3598characters) don't look right then it is likely you haven't set 3599$Conf{ClientCharset} correctly. 3600 3601If you are using smbclient on a WinXX machine, smbclient will convert 3602to the "unix charset" setting in smb.conf. The default is utf8, 3603in which case leave $Conf{ClientCharset} empty since smbclient does 3604the right conversion. 3605 3606If you are using rsync on a WinXX machine then it does no conversion. 3607A typical WinXX encoding for latin1/western europe is 'cp1252', 3608so in this case set $Conf{ClientCharset} to 'cp1252'. 3609 3610On a linux or unix client, run "locale charmap" to see the client's 3611charset. Set $Conf{ClientCharset} to this value. A typical value 3612for english/US is 'ISO-8859-1'. 3613 3614Do "perldoc Encode::Supported" to see the list of possible charset 3615values. The FAQ at http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html 3616is excellent, and http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html 3617provides more information on the iso-8859 charsets. 3618 3619=item $Conf{ClientCharsetLegacy} = 'iso-8859-1'; 3620 3621Prior to 3.x no charset conversion was done by BackupPC. Backups were 3622stored in what ever charset the XferMethod provided - typically utf8 3623for smbclient and the client's locale settings for rsync and tar (eg: 3624cp1252 for rsync on WinXX and perhaps iso-8859-1 with rsync on linux). 3625This setting tells BackupPC the charset that was used to store file 3626names in old backups taken with BackupPC 2.x, so that non-ascii file 3627names in old backups can be viewed and restored. 3628 3629=back 3630 3631=head2 Samba Configuration 3632 3633=over 4 3634 3635=item $Conf{SmbShareName} = 'C$'; 3636 3637Name of the host share that is backed up when using SMB. This can be a 3638string or an array of strings if there are multiple shares per host. 3639Examples: 3640 3641 3642 $Conf{SmbShareName} = 'c'; # backup 'c' share 3643 $Conf{SmbShareName} = ['c', 'd']; # backup 'c' and 'd' shares 3644 3645This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3646 3647=item $Conf{SmbShareUserName} = ''; 3648 3649Smbclient share user name. This is passed to smbclient's -U argument. 3650 3651This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3652 3653=item $Conf{SmbSharePasswd} = ''; 3654 3655Smbclient share password. This is passed to smbclient via its PASSWD 3656environment variable. There are several ways you can tell BackupPC 3657the smb share password. In each case you should be very careful about 3658security. If you put the password here, make sure that this file is 3659not readable by regular users! See the "Setting up config.pl" section 3660in the documentation for more information. 3661 3662This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3663 3664=item $Conf{SmbClientPath} = ''; 3665 3666Full path for smbclient. Security caution: normal users should not 3667allowed to write to this file or directory. 3668 3669smbclient is from the Samba distribution. smbclient is used to 3670actually extract the incremental or full dump of the share filesystem 3671from the PC. 3672 3673This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3674 3675=item $Conf{SmbClientFullCmd} = '$smbClientPath \\\\$host\\$shareName' ... 3676 3677Command to run smbclient for a full dump. 3678This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3679 3680The following variables are substituted at run-time: 3681 3682 $smbClientPath same as $Conf{SmbClientPath} 3683 $host host to backup/restore 3684 $hostIP host IP address 3685 $shareName share name 3686 $userName user name 3687 $fileList list of files to backup (based on exclude/include) 3688 $I_option optional -I option to smbclient 3689 $X_option exclude option (if $fileList is an exclude list) 3690 $timeStampFile start time for incremental dump 3691 3692Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3693needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3694redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3695 3696=item $Conf{SmbClientIncrCmd} = '$smbClientPath \\\\$host\\$shareName' ... 3697 3698Command to run smbclient for an incremental dump. 3699This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3700 3701Same variable substitutions are applied as $Conf{SmbClientFullCmd}. 3702 3703Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3704needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3705redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3706 3707=item $Conf{SmbClientRestoreCmd} = '$smbClientPath \\\\$host\\$shareName' ... 3708 3709Command to run smbclient for a restore. 3710This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'smb'. 3711 3712Same variable substitutions are applied as $Conf{SmbClientFullCmd}. 3713 3714If your smb share is read-only then direct restores will fail. 3715You should set $Conf{SmbClientRestoreCmd} to undef and the 3716corresponding CGI restore option will be removed. 3717 3718Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3719needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3720redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3721 3722=back 3723 3724=head2 Tar Configuration 3725 3726=over 4 3727 3728=item $Conf{TarShareName} = '/'; 3729 3730Which host directories to backup when using tar transport. This can be a 3731string or an array of strings if there are multiple directories to 3732backup per host. Examples: 3733 3734 3735 $Conf{TarShareName} = '/'; # backup everything 3736 $Conf{TarShareName} = '/home'; # only backup /home 3737 $Conf{TarShareName} = ['/home', '/src']; # backup /home and /src 3738 3739The fact this parameter is called 'TarShareName' is for historical 3740consistency with the Smb transport options. You can use any valid 3741directory on the client: there is no need for it to correspond to 3742any Smb share or device mount point. 3743 3744Note also that you can also use $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} to specify 3745a specific list of directories to backup. It's more efficient to 3746use this option instead of $Conf{TarShareName} since a new tar is 3747run for each entry in $Conf{TarShareName}. 3748 3749On the other hand, if you add --one-file-system to $Conf{TarClientCmd} 3750you can backup each file system separately, which makes restoring one 3751bad file system easier. In this case you would list all of the mount 3752points here, since you can't get the same result with 3753$Conf{BackupFilesOnly}: 3754 3755 $Conf{TarShareName} = ['/', '/var', '/data', '/boot']; 3756 3757This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'. 3758 3759=item $Conf{TarClientCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -n -l root $host' ... 3760 3761Command to run tar on the client. GNU tar is required. You will 3762need to fill in the correct paths for ssh2 on the local host (server) 3763and GNU tar on the client. Security caution: normal users should not 3764allowed to write to these executable files or directories. 3765 3766$Conf{TarClientCmd} is appended with with either $Conf{TarFullArgs} or 3767$Conf{TarIncrArgs} to create the final command that is run. 3768 3769See the documentation for more information about setting up ssh2 keys. 3770 3771If you plan to use NFS then tar just runs locally and ssh2 is not needed. 3772For example, assuming the client filesystem is mounted below /mnt/hostName, 3773you could use something like: 3774 3775 $Conf{TarClientCmd} = '$tarPath -c -v -f - -C /mnt/$host/$shareName' 3776 . ' --totals'; 3777 3778In the case of NFS or rsh you need to make sure BackupPC's privileges 3779are sufficient to read all the files you want to backup. Also, you 3780will probably want to add "/proc" to $Conf{BackupFilesExclude}. 3781 3782The following variables are substituted at run-time: 3783 3784 $host host name 3785 $hostIP host's IP address 3786 $incrDate newer-than date for incremental backups 3787 $shareName share name to backup (ie: top-level directory path) 3788 $fileList specific files to backup or exclude 3789 $tarPath same as $Conf{TarClientPath} 3790 $sshPath same as $Conf{SshPath} 3791 3792If a variable is followed by a "+" it is shell escaped. This is 3793necessary for the command part of ssh or rsh, since it ends up 3794getting passed through the shell. 3795 3796This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'. 3797 3798Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3799needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3800redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3801 3802=item $Conf{TarFullArgs} = '$fileList+'; 3803 3804Extra tar arguments for full backups. Several variables are substituted at 3805run-time. See $Conf{TarClientCmd} for the list of variable substitutions. 3806 3807If you are running tar locally (ie: without rsh or ssh) then remove the 3808"+" so that the argument is no longer shell escaped. 3809 3810This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'. 3811 3812=item $Conf{TarIncrArgs} = '--newer=$incrDate+ $fileList+'; 3813 3814Extra tar arguments for incr backups. Several variables are substituted at 3815run-time. See $Conf{TarClientCmd} for the list of variable substitutions. 3816 3817Note that GNU tar has several methods for specifying incremental backups, 3818including: 3819 3820 --newer-mtime $incrDate+ 3821 This causes a file to be included if the modification time is 3822 later than $incrDate (meaning its contents might have changed). 3823 But changes in the ownership or modes will not qualify the 3824 file to be included in an incremental. 3825 3826 --newer=$incrDate+ 3827 This causes the file to be included if any attribute of the 3828 file is later than $incrDate, meaning either attributes or 3829 the modification time. This is the default method. Do 3830 not use --atime-preserve in $Conf{TarClientCmd} above, 3831 otherwise resetting the atime (access time) counts as an 3832 attribute change, meaning the file will always be included 3833 in each new incremental dump. 3834 3835If you are running tar locally (ie: without rsh or ssh) then remove the 3836"+" so that the argument is no longer shell escaped. 3837 3838This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'. 3839 3840=item $Conf{TarClientRestoreCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $host' ... 3841 3842Full command to run tar for restore on the client. GNU tar is required. 3843This can be the same as $Conf{TarClientCmd}, with tar's -c replaced by -x 3844and ssh's -n removed. 3845 3846See $Conf{TarClientCmd} for full details. 3847 3848This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = "tar". 3849 3850If you want to disable direct restores using tar, you should set 3851$Conf{TarClientRestoreCmd} to undef and the corresponding CGI 3852restore option will be removed. 3853 3854Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3855needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3856redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3857 3858=item $Conf{TarClientPath} = ''; 3859 3860Full path for tar on the client. Security caution: normal users should not 3861allowed to write to this file or directory. 3862 3863This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'tar'. 3864 3865=back 3866 3867=head2 Rsync/Rsyncd Configuration 3868 3869=over 4 3870 3871=item $Conf{RsyncClientPath} = ''; 3872 3873Path to rsync executable on the client 3874 3875=item $Conf{RsyncClientCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $host $rsyncPath $argList+'; 3876 3877Full command to run rsync on the client machine. The following variables 3878are substituted at run-time: 3879 3880 $host host name being backed up 3881 $hostIP host's IP address 3882 $shareName share name to backup (ie: top-level directory path) 3883 $rsyncPath same as $Conf{RsyncClientPath} 3884 $sshPath same as $Conf{SshPath} 3885 $argList argument list, built from $Conf{RsyncArgs}, 3886 $shareName, $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} and 3887 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} 3888 3889This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'rsync'. 3890 3891=item $Conf{RsyncClientRestoreCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $host $rsyncPath $argList+'; 3892 3893Full command to run rsync for restore on the client. The following 3894variables are substituted at run-time: 3895 3896 $host host name being backed up 3897 $hostIP host's IP address 3898 $shareName share name to backup (ie: top-level directory path) 3899 $rsyncPath same as $Conf{RsyncClientPath} 3900 $sshPath same as $Conf{SshPath} 3901 $argList argument list, built from $Conf{RsyncArgs}, 3902 $shareName, $Conf{BackupFilesExclude} and 3903 $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} 3904 3905This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'rsync'. 3906 3907Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 3908needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 3909redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 3910 3911=item $Conf{RsyncShareName} = '/'; 3912 3913Share name to backup. For $Conf{XferMethod} = "rsync" this should 3914be a file system path, eg '/' or '/home'. 3915 3916For $Conf{XferMethod} = "rsyncd" this should be the name of the module 3917to backup (ie: the name from /etc/rsynd.conf). 3918 3919This can also be a list of multiple file system paths or modules. 3920For example, by adding --one-file-system to $Conf{RsyncArgs} you 3921can backup each file system separately, which makes restoring one 3922bad file system easier. In this case you would list all of the mount 3923points: 3924 3925 $Conf{RsyncShareName} = ['/', '/var', '/data', '/boot']; 3926 3927=item $Conf{RsyncdClientPort} = 873; 3928 3929Rsync daemon port on the client, for $Conf{XferMethod} = "rsyncd". 3930 3931=item $Conf{RsyncdUserName} = ''; 3932 3933Rsync daemon user name on client, for $Conf{XferMethod} = "rsyncd". 3934The user name and password are stored on the client in whatever file 3935the "secrets file" parameter in rsyncd.conf points to 3936(eg: /etc/rsyncd.secrets). 3937 3938=item $Conf{RsyncdPasswd} = ''; 3939 3940Rsync daemon user name on client, for $Conf{XferMethod} = "rsyncd". 3941The user name and password are stored on the client in whatever file 3942the "secrets file" parameter in rsyncd.conf points to 3943(eg: /etc/rsyncd.secrets). 3944 3945=item $Conf{RsyncdAuthRequired} = 1; 3946 3947Whether authentication is mandatory when connecting to the client's 3948rsyncd. By default this is on, ensuring that BackupPC will refuse to 3949connect to an rsyncd on the client that is not password protected. 3950Turn off at your own risk. 3951 3952=item $Conf{RsyncCsumCacheVerifyProb} = 0.01; 3953 3954When rsync checksum caching is enabled (by adding the 3955--checksum-seed=32761 option to $Conf{RsyncArgs}), the cached 3956checksums can be occasionally verified to make sure the file 3957contents matches the cached checksums. This is to avoid the 3958risk that disk problems might cause the pool file contents to 3959get corrupted, but the cached checksums would make BackupPC 3960think that the file still matches the client. 3961 3962This setting is the probability (0 means never and 1 means always) 3963that a file will be rechecked. Setting it to 0 means the checksums 3964will not be rechecked (unless there is a phase 0 failure). Setting 3965it to 1 (ie: 100%) means all files will be checked, but that is 3966not a desirable setting since you are better off simply turning 3967caching off (ie: remove the --checksum-seed option). 3968 3969The default of 0.01 means 1% (on average) of the files during a full 3970backup will have their cached checksum re-checked. 3971 3972This setting has no effect unless checksum caching is turned on. 3973 3974=item $Conf{RsyncArgs} = [ ... ]; 3975 3976Arguments to rsync for backup. Do not edit the first set unless you 3977have a thorough understanding of how File::RsyncP works. 3978 3979=item $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} = []; 3980 3981Additional arguments added to RsyncArgs. This can be used in 3982conbination with $Conf{RsyncArgs} to allow customization of 3983the rsync arguments on a part-client basis. The standard 3984arguments go in $Conf{RsyncArgs} and $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} 3985can be set on a per-client basis. 3986 3987Examples of additional arguments that should work are --exclude/--include, 3988eg: 3989 3990 $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} = [ 3991 '--exclude', '/proc', 3992 '--exclude', '*.tmp', 3993 ]; 3994 3995Both $Conf{RsyncArgs} and $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} are subject 3996to the following variable substitutions: 3997 3998 $client client name being backed up 3999 $host host name (could be different from client name if 4000 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} is set) 4001 $hostIP IP address of host 4002 $confDir configuration directory path 4003 4004This allows settings of the form: 4005 4006 $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} = [ 4007 '--exclude-from=$confDir/pc/$host.exclude', 4008 ]; 4009 4010=item $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs} = [ ... ]; 4011 4012Arguments to rsync for restore. Do not edit the first set unless you 4013have a thorough understanding of how File::RsyncP works. 4014 4015If you want to disable direct restores using rsync (eg: is the module 4016is read-only), you should set $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs} to undef and 4017the corresponding CGI restore option will be removed. 4018 4019$Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs} is subject to the following variable 4020substitutions: 4021 4022 $client client name being backed up 4023 $host host name (could be different from client name if 4024 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} is set) 4025 $hostIP IP address of host 4026 $confDir configuration directory path 4027 4028Note: $Conf{RsyncArgsExtra} doesn't apply to $Conf{RsyncRestoreArgs}. 4029 4030=back 4031 4032=head2 FTP Configuration 4033 4034=over 4 4035 4036=item $Conf{FtpShareName} = ''; 4037 4038Which host directories to backup when using FTP. This can be a 4039string or an array of strings if there are multiple shares per host. 4040 4041This value must be specified in one of two ways: either as a 4042subdirectory of the 'share root' on the server, or as the absolute 4043path of the directory. 4044 4045In the following example, if the directory /home/username is the 4046root share of the ftp server with the given username, the following 4047two values will back up the same directory: 4048 4049 $Conf{FtpShareName} = 'www'; # www directory 4050 $Conf{FtpShareName} = '/home/username/www'; # same directory 4051 4052Path resolution is not supported; i.e.; you may not have an ftp 4053share path defined as '../otheruser' or '~/games'. 4054 4055 Multiple shares may also be specified, as with other protocols: 4056 4057 $Conf{FtpShareName} = [ 'www', 4058 'bin', 4059 'config' ]; 4060 4061Note also that you can also use $Conf{BackupFilesOnly} to specify 4062a specific list of directories to backup. It's more efficient to 4063use this option instead of $Conf{FtpShareName} since a new tar is 4064run for each entry in $Conf{FtpShareName}. 4065 4066This setting only matters if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4067 4068=item $Conf{FtpUserName} = ''; 4069 4070FTP user name. This is used to log into the server. 4071 4072This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4073 4074=item $Conf{FtpPasswd} = ''; 4075 4076FTP user password. This is used to log into the server. 4077 4078This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4079 4080=item $Conf{FtpPassive} = 1; 4081 4082Whether passive mode is used. The correct setting depends upon 4083whether local or remote ports are accessible from the other machine, 4084which is affected by any firewall or routers between the FTP server 4085on the client and the BackupPC server. 4086 4087This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4088 4089=item $Conf{FtpBlockSize} = 10240; 4090 4091Transfer block size. This sets the size of the amounts of data in 4092each frame. While undefined, this value takes the default value. 4093 4094This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4095 4096=item $Conf{FtpPort} = 21; 4097 4098The port of the ftp server. If undefined, 21 is used. 4099 4100This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4101 4102=item $Conf{FtpTimeout} = 120; 4103 4104Connection timeout for FTP. When undefined, the default is 120 seconds. 4105 4106This setting is used only if $Conf{XferMethod} = 'ftp'. 4107 4108=item $Conf{FtpFollowSymlinks} = 0; 4109 4110Behaviour when BackupPC encounters symlinks on the FTP share. 4111 4112Symlinks cannot be restored via FTP, so the desired behaviour will 4113be different depending on the setup of the share. The default for 4114this behavor is 1. Directory shares with more complicated directory 4115structures should consider other protocols. 4116 4117=back 4118 4119=head2 Archive Configuration 4120 4121=over 4 4122 4123=item $Conf{ArchiveDest} = '/tmp'; 4124 4125Archive Destination 4126 4127The Destination of the archive 4128e.g. /tmp for file archive or /dev/nst0 for device archive 4129 4130=item $Conf{ArchiveComp} = 'gzip'; 4131 4132Archive Compression type 4133 4134The valid values are: 4135 4136 - 'none': No Compression 4137 4138 - 'gzip': Medium Compression. Recommended. 4139 4140 - 'bzip2': High Compression but takes longer. 4141 4142=item $Conf{ArchivePar} = 0; 4143 4144Archive Parity Files 4145 4146The amount of Parity data to generate, as a percentage 4147of the archive size. 4148Uses the commandline par2 (par2cmdline) available from 4149http://parchive.sourceforge.net 4150 4151Only useful for file dumps. 4152 4153Set to 0 to disable this feature. 4154 4155=item $Conf{ArchiveSplit} = 0; 4156 4157Archive Size Split 4158 4159Only for file archives. Splits the output into 4160the specified size * 1,000,000. 4161e.g. to split into 650,000,000 bytes, specify 650 below. 4162 4163If the value is 0, or if $Conf{ArchiveDest} is an existing file or 4164device (e.g. a streaming tape drive), this feature is disabled. 4165 4166=item $Conf{ArchiveClientCmd} = '$Installdir/bin/BackupPC_archiveHost' ... 4167 4168Archive Command 4169 4170This is the command that is called to actually run the archive process 4171for each host. The following variables are substituted at run-time: 4172 4173 $Installdir The installation directory of BackupPC 4174 $tarCreatePath The path to BackupPC_tarCreate 4175 $splitpath The path to the split program 4176 $parpath The path to the par2 program 4177 $host The host to archive 4178 $backupnumber The backup number of the host to archive 4179 $compression The path to the compression program 4180 $compext The extension assigned to the compression type 4181 $splitsize The number of bytes to split archives into 4182 $archiveloc The location to put the archive 4183 $parfile The amount of parity data to create (percentage) 4184 4185Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 4186needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 4187redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 4188 4189=item $Conf{SshPath} = ''; 4190 4191Full path for ssh. Security caution: normal users should not 4192allowed to write to this file or directory. 4193 4194=item $Conf{NmbLookupPath} = ''; 4195 4196Full path for nmblookup. Security caution: normal users should not 4197allowed to write to this file or directory. 4198 4199nmblookup is from the Samba distribution. nmblookup is used to get the 4200netbios name, necessary for DHCP hosts. 4201 4202=item $Conf{NmbLookupCmd} = '$nmbLookupPath -A $host'; 4203 4204NmbLookup command. Given an IP address, does an nmblookup on that 4205IP address. The following variables are substituted at run-time: 4206 4207 $nmbLookupPath path to nmblookup ($Conf{NmbLookupPath}) 4208 $host IP address 4209 4210This command is only used for DHCP hosts: given an IP address, this 4211command should try to find its NetBios name. 4212 4213Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 4214needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 4215redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 4216 4217=item $Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} = '$nmbLookupPath $host'; 4218 4219NmbLookup command. Given a netbios name, finds that host by doing 4220a NetBios lookup. Several variables are substituted at run-time: 4221 4222 $nmbLookupPath path to nmblookup ($Conf{NmbLookupPath}) 4223 $host NetBios name 4224 4225In some cases you might need to change the broadcast address, for 4226example if nmblookup uses 192.168.255.255 by default and you find 4227that doesn't work, try 192.168.1.255 (or your equivalent class C 4228address) using the -B option: 4229 4230 $Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} = '$nmbLookupPath -B 192.168.1.255 $host'; 4231 4232If you use a WINS server and your machines don't respond to 4233multicast NetBios requests you can use this (replace 1.2.3.4 4234with the IP address of your WINS server): 4235 4236 $Conf{NmbLookupFindHostCmd} = '$nmbLookupPath -R -U 1.2.3.4 $host'; 4237 4238This is preferred over multicast since it minimizes network traffic. 4239 4240Experiment manually for your site to see what form of nmblookup command 4241works. 4242 4243Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 4244needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 4245redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 4246 4247=item $Conf{FixedIPNetBiosNameCheck} = 0; 4248 4249For fixed IP address hosts, BackupPC_dump can also verify the netbios 4250name to ensure it matches the host name. An error is generated if 4251they do not match. Typically this flag is off. But if you are going 4252to transition a bunch of machines from fixed host addresses to DHCP, 4253setting this flag is a great way to verify that the machines have 4254their netbios name set correctly before turning on DCHP. 4255 4256=item $Conf{PingPath} = ''; 4257 4258Full path to the ping command. Security caution: normal users 4259should not be allowed to write to this file or directory. 4260 4261If you want to disable ping checking, set this to some program 4262that exits with 0 status, eg: 4263 4264 $Conf{PingPath} = '/bin/echo'; 4265 4266=item $Conf{PingCmd} = '$pingPath -c 1 $host'; 4267 4268Ping command. The following variables are substituted at run-time: 4269 4270 $pingPath path to ping ($Conf{PingPath}) 4271 $host host name 4272 4273Wade Brown reports that on solaris 2.6 and 2.7 ping -s returns the wrong 4274exit status (0 even on failure). Replace with "ping $host 1", which 4275gets the correct exit status but we don't get the round-trip time. 4276 4277Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 4278needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 4279redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 4280 4281=item $Conf{PingMaxMsec} = 20; 4282 4283Maximum round-trip ping time in milliseconds. This threshold is set 4284to avoid backing up PCs that are remotely connected through WAN or 4285dialup connections. The output from ping -s (assuming it is supported 4286on your system) is used to check the round-trip packet time. On your 4287local LAN round-trip times should be much less than 20msec. On most 4288WAN or dialup connections the round-trip time will be typically more 4289than 20msec. Tune if necessary. 4290 4291=item $Conf{CompressLevel} = 0; 4292 4293Compression level to use on files. 0 means no compression. Compression 4294levels can be from 1 (least cpu time, slightly worse compression) to 42959 (most cpu time, slightly better compression). The recommended value 4296is 3. Changing to 5, for example, will take maybe 20% more cpu time 4297and will get another 2-3% additional compression. See the zlib 4298documentation for more information about compression levels. 4299 4300Changing compression on or off after backups have already been done 4301will require both compressed and uncompressed pool files to be stored. 4302This will increase the pool storage requirements, at least until all 4303the old backups expire and are deleted. 4304 4305It is ok to change the compression value (from one non-zero value to 4306another non-zero value) after dumps are already done. Since BackupPC 4307matches pool files by comparing the uncompressed versions, it will still 4308correctly match new incoming files against existing pool files. The 4309new compression level will take effect only for new files that are 4310newly compressed and added to the pool. 4311 4312If compression was off and you are enabling compression for the first 4313time you can use the BackupPC_compressPool utility to compress the 4314pool. This avoids having the pool grow to accommodate both compressed 4315and uncompressed backups. See the documentation for more information. 4316 4317Note: compression needs the Compress::Zlib perl library. If the 4318Compress::Zlib library can't be found then $Conf{CompressLevel} is 4319forced to 0 (compression off). 4320 4321=item $Conf{ClientTimeout} = 72000; 4322 4323Timeout in seconds when listening for the transport program's 4324(smbclient, tar etc) stdout. If no output is received during this 4325time, then it is assumed that something has wedged during a backup, 4326and the backup is terminated. 4327 4328Note that stdout buffering combined with huge files being backed up 4329could cause longish delays in the output from smbclient that 4330BackupPC_dump sees, so in rare cases you might want to increase 4331this value. 4332 4333Despite the name, this parameter sets the timeout for all transport 4334methods (tar, smb etc). 4335 4336=item $Conf{MaxOldPerPCLogFiles} = 12; 4337 4338Maximum number of log files we keep around in each PC's directory 4339(ie: pc/$host). These files are aged monthly. A setting of 12 4340means there will be at most the files LOG, LOG.0, LOG.1, ... LOG.11 4341in the pc/$host directory (ie: about a years worth). (Except this 4342month's LOG, these files will have a .z extension if compression 4343is on). 4344 4345If you decrease this number after BackupPC has been running for a 4346while you will have to manually remove the older log files. 4347 4348=item $Conf{DumpPreUserCmd} = undef; 4349 4350=item $Conf{DumpPostUserCmd} = undef; 4351 4352=item $Conf{DumpPreShareCmd} = undef; 4353 4354=item $Conf{DumpPostShareCmd} = undef; 4355 4356=item $Conf{RestorePreUserCmd} = undef; 4357 4358=item $Conf{RestorePostUserCmd} = undef; 4359 4360=item $Conf{ArchivePreUserCmd} = undef; 4361 4362=item $Conf{ArchivePostUserCmd} = undef; 4363 4364Optional commands to run before and after dumps and restores, 4365and also before and after each share of a dump. 4366 4367Stdout from these commands will be written to the Xfer (or Restore) 4368log file. One example of using these commands would be to 4369shut down and restart a database server, dump a database 4370to files for backup, or doing a snapshot of a share prior 4371to a backup. Example: 4372 4373 4374 $Conf{DumpPreUserCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $host /usr/bin/dumpMysql'; 4375 4376The following variable substitutions are made at run time for 4377$Conf{DumpPreUserCmd}, $Conf{DumpPostUserCmd}, $Conf{DumpPreShareCmd} 4378and $Conf{DumpPostShareCmd}: 4379 4380 $type type of dump (incr or full) 4381 $xferOK 1 if the dump succeeded, 0 if it didn't 4382 $client client name being backed up 4383 $host host name (could be different from client name if 4384 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} is set) 4385 $hostIP IP address of host 4386 $user user name from the hosts file 4387 $moreUsers list of additional users from the hosts file 4388 $share the first share name (or current share for 4389 $Conf{DumpPreShareCmd} and $Conf{DumpPostShareCmd}) 4390 $shares list of all the share names 4391 $XferMethod value of $Conf{XferMethod} (eg: tar, rsync, smb) 4392 $sshPath value of $Conf{SshPath}, 4393 $cmdType set to DumpPreUserCmd or DumpPostUserCmd 4394 4395The following variable substitutions are made at run time for 4396$Conf{RestorePreUserCmd} and $Conf{RestorePostUserCmd}: 4397 4398 $client client name being backed up 4399 $xferOK 1 if the restore succeeded, 0 if it didn't 4400 $host host name (could be different from client name if 4401 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} is set) 4402 $hostIP IP address of host 4403 $user user name from the hosts file 4404 $moreUsers list of additional users from the hosts file 4405 $share the first share name 4406 $XferMethod value of $Conf{XferMethod} (eg: tar, rsync, smb) 4407 $sshPath value of $Conf{SshPath}, 4408 $type set to "restore" 4409 $bkupSrcHost host name of the restore source 4410 $bkupSrcShare share name of the restore source 4411 $bkupSrcNum backup number of the restore source 4412 $pathHdrSrc common starting path of restore source 4413 $pathHdrDest common starting path of destination 4414 $fileList list of files being restored 4415 $cmdType set to RestorePreUserCmd or RestorePostUserCmd 4416 4417The following variable substitutions are made at run time for 4418$Conf{ArchivePreUserCmd} and $Conf{ArchivePostUserCmd}: 4419 4420 $client client name being backed up 4421 $xferOK 1 if the archive succeeded, 0 if it didn't 4422 $host Name of the archive host 4423 $user user name from the hosts file 4424 $share the first share name 4425 $XferMethod value of $Conf{XferMethod} (eg: tar, rsync, smb) 4426 $HostList list of hosts being archived 4427 $BackupList list of backup numbers for the hosts being archived 4428 $archiveloc location where the archive is sent to 4429 $parfile amount of parity data being generated (percentage) 4430 $compression compression program being used (eg: cat, gzip, bzip2) 4431 $compext extension used for compression type (eg: raw, gz, bz2) 4432 $splitsize size of the files that the archive creates 4433 $sshPath value of $Conf{SshPath}, 4434 $type set to "archive" 4435 $cmdType set to ArchivePreUserCmd or ArchivePostUserCmd 4436 4437Note: all Cmds are executed directly without a shell, so the prog name 4438needs to be a full path and you can't include shell syntax like 4439redirection and pipes; put that in a script if you need it. 4440 4441=item $Conf{UserCmdCheckStatus} = 0; 4442 4443Whether the exit status of each PreUserCmd and 4444PostUserCmd is checked. 4445 4446If set and the Dump/Restore/Archive Pre/Post UserCmd 4447returns a non-zero exit status then the dump/restore/archive 4448is aborted. To maintain backward compatibility (where 4449the exit status in early versions was always ignored), 4450this flag defaults to 0. 4451 4452If this flag is set and the Dump/Restore/Archive PreUserCmd 4453fails then the matching Dump/Restore/Archive PostUserCmd is 4454not executed. If DumpPreShareCmd returns a non-exit status, 4455then DumpPostShareCmd is not executed, but the DumpPostUserCmd 4456is still run (since DumpPreUserCmd must have previously 4457succeeded). 4458 4459An example of a DumpPreUserCmd that might fail is a script 4460that snapshots or dumps a database which fails because 4461of some database error. 4462 4463=item $Conf{ClientNameAlias} = undef; 4464 4465Override the client's host name. This allows multiple clients 4466to all refer to the same physical host. This should only be 4467set in the per-PC config file and is only used by BackupPC at 4468the last moment prior to generating the command used to backup 4469that machine (ie: the value of $Conf{ClientNameAlias} is invisible 4470everywhere else in BackupPC). The setting can be a host name or 4471IP address, eg: 4472 4473 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} = 'realHostName'; 4474 $Conf{ClientNameAlias} = '192.1.1.15'; 4475 4476will cause the relevant smb/tar/rsync backup/restore commands to be 4477directed to realHostName, not the client name. 4478 4479Note: this setting doesn't work for hosts with DHCP set to 1. 4480 4481=back 4482 4483=head2 Email reminders, status and messages 4484 4485=over 4 4486 4487=item $Conf{SendmailPath} = ''; 4488 4489Full path to the sendmail command. Security caution: normal users 4490should not allowed to write to this file or directory. 4491 4492=item $Conf{EMailNotifyMinDays} = 2.5; 4493 4494Minimum period between consecutive emails to a single user. 4495This tries to keep annoying email to users to a reasonable 4496level. Email checks are done nightly, so this number is effectively 4497rounded up (ie: 2.5 means a user will never receive email more 4498than once every 3 days). 4499 4500=item $Conf{EMailFromUserName} = ''; 4501 4502Name to use as the "from" name for email. Depending upon your mail 4503handler this is either a plain name (eg: "admin") or a fully-qualified 4504name (eg: "admin@mydomain.com"). 4505 4506=item $Conf{EMailAdminUserName} = ''; 4507 4508Destination address to an administrative user who will receive a 4509nightly email with warnings and errors. If there are no warnings 4510or errors then no email will be sent. Depending upon your mail 4511handler this is either a plain name (eg: "admin") or a fully-qualified 4512name (eg: "admin@mydomain.com"). 4513 4514=item $Conf{EMailUserDestDomain} = ''; 4515 4516Destination domain name for email sent to users. By default 4517this is empty, meaning email is sent to plain, unqualified 4518addresses. Otherwise, set it to the destintation domain, eg: 4519 4520 $Cong{EMailUserDestDomain} = '@mydomain.com'; 4521 4522With this setting user email will be set to 'user@mydomain.com'. 4523 4524=item $Conf{EMailNoBackupEverSubj} = undef; 4525 4526=item $Conf{EMailNoBackupEverMesg} = undef; 4527 4528This subject and message is sent to a user if their PC has never been 4529backed up. 4530 4531These values are language-dependent. The default versions can be 4532found in the language file (eg: lib/BackupPC/Lang/en.pm). If you 4533need to change the message, copy it here and edit it, eg: 4534 4535 $Conf{EMailNoBackupEverMesg} = <<'EOF'; 4536 To: $user$domain 4537 cc: 4538 Subject: $subj 4539 4540 Dear $userName, 4541 4542 This is a site-specific email message. 4543 EOF 4544 4545=item $Conf{EMailNotifyOldBackupDays} = 7.0; 4546 4547How old the most recent backup has to be before notifying user. 4548When there have been no backups in this number of days the user 4549is sent an email. 4550 4551=item $Conf{EMailNoBackupRecentSubj} = undef; 4552 4553=item $Conf{EMailNoBackupRecentMesg} = undef; 4554 4555This subject and message is sent to a user if their PC has not recently 4556been backed up (ie: more than $Conf{EMailNotifyOldBackupDays} days ago). 4557 4558These values are language-dependent. The default versions can be 4559found in the language file (eg: lib/BackupPC/Lang/en.pm). If you 4560need to change the message, copy it here and edit it, eg: 4561 4562 $Conf{EMailNoBackupRecentMesg} = <<'EOF'; 4563 To: $user$domain 4564 cc: 4565 Subject: $subj 4566 4567 Dear $userName, 4568 4569 This is a site-specific email message. 4570 EOF 4571 4572=item $Conf{EMailNotifyOldOutlookDays} = 5.0; 4573 4574How old the most recent backup of Outlook files has to be before 4575notifying user. 4576 4577=item $Conf{EMailOutlookBackupSubj} = undef; 4578 4579=item $Conf{EMailOutlookBackupMesg} = undef; 4580 4581This subject and message is sent to a user if their Outlook files have 4582not recently been backed up (ie: more than $Conf{EMailNotifyOldOutlookDays} 4583days ago). 4584 4585These values are language-dependent. The default versions can be 4586found in the language file (eg: lib/BackupPC/Lang/en.pm). If you 4587need to change the message, copy it here and edit it, eg: 4588 4589 $Conf{EMailOutlookBackupMesg} = <<'EOF'; 4590 To: $user$domain 4591 cc: 4592 Subject: $subj 4593 4594 Dear $userName, 4595 4596 This is a site-specific email message. 4597 EOF 4598 4599=item $Conf{EMailHeaders} = <<EOF; 4600 4601Additional email headers. This sets to charset to 4602utf8. 4603 4604=back 4605 4606=head2 CGI user interface configuration settings 4607 4608=over 4 4609 4610=item $Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} = ''; 4611 4612=item $Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = ''; 4613 4614Normal users can only access information specific to their host. 4615They can start/stop/browse/restore backups. 4616 4617Administrative users have full access to all hosts, plus overall 4618status and log information. 4619 4620The administrative users are the union of the unix/linux group 4621$Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} and the manual list of users, separated 4622by spaces, in $Conf{CgiAdminUsers}. If you don't want a group or 4623manual list of users set the corresponding configuration setting 4624to undef or an empty string. 4625 4626If you want every user to have admin privileges (careful!), set 4627$Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = '*'. 4628 4629Examples: 4630 4631 $Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} = 'admin'; 4632 $Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = 'craig celia'; 4633 --> administrative users are the union of group admin, plus 4634 craig and celia. 4635 4636 $Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} = ''; 4637 $Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = 'craig celia'; 4638 --> administrative users are only craig and celia'. 4639 4640=item $Conf{CgiURL} = undef; 4641 4642URL of the BackupPC_Admin CGI script. Used for email messages. 4643 4644=item $Conf{Language} = 'en'; 4645 4646Language to use. See lib/BackupPC/Lang for the list of supported 4647languages, which include English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), 4648German (de), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Portuguese 4649Brazillian (pt_br) and Chinese (zh_CH). 4650 4651Currently the Language setting applies to the CGI interface and email 4652messages sent to users. Log files and other text are still in English. 4653 4654=item $Conf{CgiUserHomePageCheck} = ''; 4655 4656=item $Conf{CgiUserUrlCreate} = 'mailto:%s'; 4657 4658User names that are rendered by the CGI interface can be turned 4659into links into their home page or other information about the 4660user. To set this up you need to create two sprintf() strings, 4661that each contain a single '%s' that will be replaced by the user 4662name. The default is a mailto: link. 4663 4664$Conf{CgiUserHomePageCheck} should be an absolute file path that 4665is used to check (via "-f") that the user has a valid home page. 4666Set this to undef or an empty string to turn off this check. 4667 4668$Conf{CgiUserUrlCreate} should be a full URL that points to the 4669user's home page. Set this to undef or an empty string to turn 4670off generation of URLs for user names. 4671 4672Example: 4673 4674 $Conf{CgiUserHomePageCheck} = '/var/www/html/users/%s.html'; 4675 $Conf{CgiUserUrlCreate} = 'http://myhost/users/%s.html'; 4676 --> if /var/www/html/users/craig.html exists, then 'craig' will 4677 be rendered as a link to http://myhost/users/craig.html. 4678 4679=item $Conf{CgiDateFormatMMDD} = 1; 4680 4681Date display format for CGI interface. A value of 1 uses US-style 4682dates (MM/DD), a value of 2 uses full YYYY-MM-DD format, and zero 4683for international dates (DD/MM). 4684 4685=item $Conf{CgiNavBarAdminAllHosts} = 1; 4686 4687If set, the complete list of hosts appears in the left navigation 4688bar pull-down for administrators. Otherwise, just the hosts for which 4689the user is listed in the host file (as either the user or in moreUsers) 4690are displayed. 4691 4692=item $Conf{CgiSearchBoxEnable} = 1; 4693 4694Enable/disable the search box in the navigation bar. 4695 4696=item $Conf{CgiNavBarLinks} = [ ... ]; 4697 4698Additional navigation bar links. These appear for both regular users 4699and administrators. This is a list of hashes giving the link (URL) 4700and the text (name) for the link. Specifying lname instead of name 4701uses the language specific string (ie: $Lang->{lname}) instead of 4702just literally displaying name. 4703 4704=item $Conf{CgiStatusHilightColor} = { ... 4705 4706Hilight colors based on status that are used in the PC summary page. 4707 4708=item $Conf{CgiHeaders} = '<meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache">'; 4709 4710Additional CGI header text. 4711 4712=item $Conf{CgiImageDir} = ''; 4713 4714Directory where images are stored. This directory should be below 4715Apache's DocumentRoot. This value isn't used by BackupPC but is 4716used by configure.pl when you upgrade BackupPC. 4717 4718Example: 4719 4720 $Conf{CgiImageDir} = '/var/www/htdocs/BackupPC'; 4721 4722=item $Conf{CgiExt2ContentType} = { }; 4723 4724Additional mappings of file name extenions to Content-Type for 4725individual file restore. See $Ext2ContentType in BackupPC_Admin 4726for the default setting. You can add additional settings here, 4727or override any default settings. Example: 4728 4729 4730 $Conf{CgiExt2ContentType} = { 4731 'pl' => 'text/plain', 4732 }; 4733 4734=item $Conf{CgiImageDirURL} = ''; 4735 4736URL (without the leading http://host) for BackupPC's image directory. 4737The CGI script uses this value to serve up image files. 4738 4739Example: 4740 4741 $Conf{CgiImageDirURL} = '/BackupPC'; 4742 4743=item $Conf{CgiCSSFile} = 'BackupPC_stnd.css'; 4744 4745CSS stylesheet "skin" for the CGI interface. It is stored 4746in the $Conf{CgiImageDir} directory and accessed via the 4747$Conf{CgiImageDirURL} URL. 4748 4749For BackupPC v3.x several color, layout and font changes were made. 4750The previous v2.x version is available as BackupPC_stnd_orig.css, so 4751if you prefer the old skin, change this to BackupPC_stnd_orig.css. 4752 4753=item $Conf{CgiUserConfigEditEnable} = 1; 4754 4755Whether the user is allowed to edit their per-PC config. 4756 4757=item $Conf{CgiUserConfigEdit} = { ... 4758 4759Which per-host config variables a non-admin user is allowed 4760to edit. Admin users can edit all per-host config variables, 4761even if disabled in this list. 4762 4763SECURITY WARNING: Do not let users edit any of the Cmd 4764config variables! That's because a user could set a 4765Cmd to a shell script of their choice and it will be 4766run as the BackupPC user. That script could do all 4767sorts of bad things. 4768 4769=back 4770 4771 4772=head1 Version Numbers 4773 4774Starting with v1.4.0 BackupPC uses a X.Y.Z version numbering system, 4775instead of X.0Y. The first digit is for major new releases, the middle 4776digit is for significant feature releases and improvements (most of 4777the releases have been in this category), and the last digit is for 4778bug fixes. You should think of the old 1.00, 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03 as 47791.0.0, 1.1.0, 1.2.0 and 1.3.0. 4780 4781Additionally, patches might be made available. A patched version 4782number is of the form X.Y.ZplN (eg: 2.1.0pl2), where N is the 4783patch level. 4784 4785=head1 Author 4786 4787Craig Barratt <cbarratt@users.sourceforge.net> 4788 4789See L<http://backuppc.sourceforge.net>. 4790 4791=head1 Copyright 4792 4793Copyright (C) 2001-2015 Craig Barratt 4794 4795=head1 Credits 4796 4797Ryan Kucera contributed the directory navigation code and images 4798for v1.5.0. He contributed the first skeleton of BackupPC_restore. 4799He also added a significant revision to the CGI interface, including 4800CSS tags, in v2.1.0, and designed the BackupPC logo. 4801 4802Xavier Nicollet, with additions from Guillaume Filion, added the 4803internationalization (i18n) support to the CGI interface for v2.0.0. 4804Xavier provided the French translation fr.pm, with additions from 4805Guillaume. 4806 4807Guillaume Filion wrote BackupPC_zipCreate and added the CGI support 4808for zip download, in addition to some CGI cleanup, for v1.5.0. 4809Guillaume continues to support fr.pm updates for each new version. 4810 4811Josh Marshall implemented the Archive feature in v2.1.0. 4812 4813Ludovic Drolez supports the BackupPC Debian package. 4814 4815Javier Gonzalez provided the Spanish translation, es.pm for v2.0.0. 4816 4817Manfred Herrmann provided the German translation, de.pm for v2.0.0. 4818Manfred continues to support de.pm updates for each new version, 4819together with some help from Ralph Pa�gang. 4820 4821Lorenzo Cappelletti provided the Italian translation, it.pm for v2.1.0. 4822Giuseppe Iuculano and Vittorio Macchi updated it for 3.0.0. 4823 4824Lieven Bridts provided the Dutch translation, nl.pm, for v2.1.0, 4825with some tweaks from Guus Houtzager, and updates for 3.0.0. 4826 4827Reginaldo Ferreira provided the Portuguese Brazillian translation 4828pt_br.pm for v2.2.0. 4829 4830Rich Duzenbury provided the RSS feed option to the CGI interface. 4831 4832Jono Woodhouse from CapeSoft Software (www.capesoft.com) provided a 4833new CSS skin for 3.0.0 with several layout improvements. Sean Cameron 4834(also from CapeSoft) designed new and more compact file icons for 3.0.0. 4835 4836Youlin Feng provided the Chinese translation for 3.1.0. 4837 4838Karol 'Semper' Stelmaczonek provided the Polish translation for 3.1.0. 4839 4840Jeremy Tietsort provided the host summary table sorting feature for 3.1.0. 4841 4842Paul Mantz contributed the ftp Xfer method for 3.2.0. 4843 4844Petr Pokorny provided the Czech translation for 3.2.1. 4845 4846Rikiya Yamamoto provided the Japanese translation for 3.3.0. 4847 4848Yakim provided the Ukrainian translation for 3.3.0. 4849 4850Sergei Butakov provided the Russian translation for 3.3.0. 4851 4852Many people have reported bugs, made useful suggestions and helped 4853with testing; see the ChangeLog and the mailing lists. 4854 4855Your name could appear here in the next version! 4856 4857=head1 License 4858 4859This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it 4860under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the 4861Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your 4862option) any later version. 4863 4864This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, 4865but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 4866MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU 4867General Public License for more details. 4868 4869You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License in the 4870LICENSE file along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software 4871Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA. 4872