NAS devices, SSH access, and secure backups

[Jerry Feldman]

On 09/16/2009 06:47 AM, markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
>  =20
>> Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:42:24 -0400
>> From: Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
>> Subject: Re: NAS devices, SSH access, and secure backups
>> To: discuss-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org
>> Message-ID: <4AAE8E90.5000408-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"iso-8859-1"
>>
>> On 09/14/2009 09:46 AM, markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
>>    =20
>>> The "Securely backing up Linux machines to NAS?" discussion got me
>>> thinking...
>>>
>>> I have a DLINK-321 NAS device (From Microcenter, of course). The cool=

>>> thing about this unit is the fact that the standard firmware is Linux=

>>> and
>>> it looks for a script file called "fun_plug" on the mounted volume at=

>>> startup. This is so vendors can customize the units operation. Well..=
=2E.
>>> There is a fairly good set of Linux utilities that can be installed o=
n
>>> your disk that provide things like sshd, rsync, samba, etc.
>>>
>>> I have been running this for a couple months and it seems pretty stab=
le.
>>> The best part is that is does not change the firmware, it merely gets=

>>> executed at startup, so it is fairly safe. I bet that most of the uni=
ts
>>> out there are fairly similar.
>>>
>>> So, as per the previous discussion....
>>>
>>> If you install the "fun_plug" utilities, you can rsync, through ssh, =
(or
>>> just scp) your backup into a directory on the NAS without ever making=

>>> the
>>> backed-up directory exposed through samba.
>>>
>>>      =20
>> Can you install rsnaphot. Since I first heard about rsnapshot here, I'=
ve
>> been using it on my home system and on our WD MyBook. The biggest
>> advantage of rsnapshot is that it is configured through a standard
>> config file, and it uses rsync. Multiple backups effectively provide
>> incremental backup by using hard links, so that files in the daily.0 a=
nd
>> daily.1 directory that did not change are simply hard linked. It uses
>> the rsync --link-dest command to do this.
>>
>>    =20
> Well, I'm not sure. I don't know too much about it. If it is a perl or
> python script around rsync, then probably. If it is a properly compiled=

> binary, then you'd need to get a cross-compiler for the NAS box that ru=
ns
> on your system.
>
> Take a look here:
> http://wiki.dns323.info/
>
rsnapshot is a perl script released under the GPL. You should be able to
download it directly from rsnapshot.org but I suggest you look at optware=
=2E
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/Packages?from=3DUnslung.Packages
Optware provides various builds for Arm processors. Not sure if they are
compatible with the

DLINK-321. In any case, it should work for you.


--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
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