1. First, Note these Warnings:

1.1. WARNING: Direct Restore is DISabled.

BackupPC has a very useful but potentially dangerous feature called Direct Restore, which is listed as the 1st option in the Restore Options on the Web Interface. This allows you to replace an arbitrary number of files on your PC with those from a previous backup. It’s very convenient, but you could easily replace newer files with older files, irreversibly losing the newer ones. Threfore this feature has been disabled by default on your PC and if you try it, it will fail. If you really REALLY REALLY must know how to enable it, please give me a call.

1.2. WARNING: Check your Backup directories first

Please use the free (and quite beautiful) Disk Inventory X (Mac) or kdirstat (Linux) to see how much disk space is being used in the directory you want to back up. If it contains too much data, especially of forbidden data types (see bottom), it may not be backed up completely and you certainly don’t want to back up files such as personal financial data, medical or human subjects records, etc. Please make sure these files are NOT in the directory you intend to back up.

2. Unzip the zip file attached to this email

Detach and save the zipfile to a convenient place - it doesn’t matter where. When you unzip it, it will create a backuppc directory and unpack the files there.

There are a number of files in this zip archive but the ones that are customized for you are:

  • rsyncd.conf - the configuration file that sets what is backed up and to where

  • rsyncd.secrets - your login and password for rsync & the web interface in plaintext.

  • imalive.sh - tells the server what your IP address is every 15m in case it changes

  • rsync.password - your password to connect to the server via rsync

3. Run the installation batch file

If on Linux, open your favorite terminal. If on a Mac, do the same. This may seem alien but is fairly easy. The Terminal app is here: Applications → Utilities → Terminal.

Now, cd into the backuppc dir and execute the file named install_LinMac_backuppc_client.sh by typing:

# needs to be executed as root to install files in /etc so 'sudo'
# requires you to enter the password associated with your username

sudo bash ./install_LinMac_backuppc_client.sh

This bash script will detect your platform, test for an installed rsync, upgrade it if necessary, and install the files in the correct places (/etc/BackupPC), and install the correct init scripts. You should not have to reboot.

If you have a local firewall, you may have to manually have to open port 873 for rsync to communicate to the server.

4. Using the BackupPC Web Interface

You can directly manage your backups by logging into the BackupPC server web interface with the login and password that you used to register the PC. If you’ve registered multiple PCs, you should be able to select among them with the [Select a host…] dropdown at the upper left.

Once you’ve selected a PC to administer, you can view the contents of your backups by clicking on the Browse Backups link also at the upper left of the PC’s window. Select the ones you want to recover by clicking on the appropriate checkboxes and then click the [Restore Selected Files] button near the top right.

As mentioned above, you cannot use Option 1 (Direct Restore). Use Option 2 (Download Zip Archive) to combine all the files selected and then download them in one shot.

If you have problems, please give me a shout. Harry Mangalam, 949 824 0084.

5. Forbidden Files

BackupPC will not back up the following file types:

  • .exe

  • .zip

  • .bz

  • .mp3

  • .wmv

  • .mov

  • .mp4

  • .log

  • .sys

  • .dll

  • .fon

  • .wmv

  • .WMV

  • .wma

  • .WMA

  • .tmp

  • .rpm

  • .bin

  • .deb

  • .tax

  • .TAX

  • .chp

  • .gff

  • .nc

  • .o

  • .rm

  • .mov

  • .m4a

  • .out

  • .iso

  • .mp3

  • .gz

  • .mp3

  • .ogg

  • .part

If you want to prevent other file types from being backed up, you can add them to the file /etc/BackupPC/rsyncd.exclude in the format shown above.