BackupNetClone (BNC)

Overview

So you want the perfect backup solution?! You've come to the right place. Though BackupNetClone isn't perfect, it does include the following key features:

• Scheduled -- you don't have to remember when to backup
• Hard drive backup media -- no disposable media (DVDs, tapes, etc that have to be "rotated") or recurring costs; also provides best dollar-per-byte ratio
• Commodity hardware (PC with hard drive running Linux) is used to the store the data (or a Linux-capable NAS device works well)
• Open source software (Linux) and open standards (ext2 or ext3 file systems) to store data -- doesn't tie you down to any particular brand or software/hardware
• Local or remote secure transfers -- well-suited for backup over the Internet (offsite) or within a network (onsite)
• Multiple targets ("backup clients") can be backed up onto one device ("backup server")
• Email status can be sent containing summary of what was backed up and how much space is left on backup device
• Multi-platform for the backup clients -- any PC (Mac OS X, MS Windows, Linux/UNIX) can be backed up
• "Snapshot" backups stored -- each contains a full copy of data for that moment in time, allowing you to revert back to any version of a file that has been previously backed up
• Incremental storage in the file system -- saves space by linking files that are identical, but also allows each snapshot to be independent of others so any snapshot can be deleted at any time
• Retrieve any file any time from any backup session -- files are not stored compressed or in a special format
• Completely free -- code is in the Public Domain

BackupNetClone's basic purpose is to perform a secure backup over the Internet from multiple computers onto a device running Linux. In other words, create off-site backups in an automated fashion over the Internet.

Imagine this scenario:

I have a NAS device at home that holds two drives. (They don't need to be the same size.) One drive is available on my network and is where all my family's documents and photos are stored. All computers in our home have that drive mapped and we save everything there. Every night the (Linux-capable) NAS device runs BackupNetClone to create a snapshot of the first drive on the second drive. Since not many files change each day, the only additional space I'm using on the second drive is however much I added that day to the first drive. Now let's say I mistakenly overwrite a file on the network drive. Or worse yet, I make a drastic change to a document then save it over the original. I can't undo my change after closing the word processing software, and I can't undelete my mistake since the file was never deleted. All I have to do is look at the second drive in the NAS device and grab the file from yesterday's (or any other day's) snapshot. Easy!

Or here's another scenario that is supported by BackupNetClone:

I run a small business that has important financial, customer, inventory, and order information. I've backed up the data using a tape drive in the past, but this is such a pain because my information is getting too big for the tapes, and it's hard to remember to rotate the tapes and remember to bring one home (for offsite backup, just in case the business' building burns down). I've also started storing product information (instruction manual documents, promotional DVD video data, and catalog originals). Hard drives are cheap compared to how much data I'm storing, but tape drive sizes and DVD drives just aren't keeping up. So I set up a Linux computer with an extra hard drive at my home. I set up BackupNetClone to nightly copy the business' data over the Internet (security is built into BNC). Now I have piece-of-mind every morning when I get my status email for the maintenance-free offsite backup, and I can even revert back to old data if I need to! Even with my upload speeds on DSL (rated at 256Kbps), I can transfer about 1GB of data each night, which is much more than I generate on any given business day. Plus, if I do have more than that in a day, BackupNetClone will automatically catch up as it does each of the following snapshots, and the daily email tells me when it's caught up.

Note that we can combine the above scenarios in any way we want--I could be using my home NAS device to not only backup itself, but also to backup the business' data remotely every night!

Ok, so what's the catch? Why wouldn't everyone be using BackupNetClone already? Here's things to keep in mind before jumping in:

• Installation is not trivial (Linux experience is beneficial though not necessary--see the Installation pages for step-by-step instructions)
• Email status only works if you have an SMTP server that doesn't use fancy authentication (in other words, BackupNetClone doesn't yet know how to send status emails through Hotmail, Gmail, etc)
• The hardware isn't free, though if you have a spare computer sitting around it would be free to throw Linux on it...
• Backups are still space-limited, so eventually you'll run out of space for the snapshot data, unless of course you keep on adding space to your backup server

If you want more specifics on what is required to run BackupNetClone (BNC), read the Requirements page. To find out more about the features of BNC, see the Features page. Or check out the Philosophy page to learn more about how it works and why you should use it.

NOTE: Originally BackupNetClone was designed for D-Link's DNS-323 device. For information about this device check out the Wiki and associated Forum. Along with the wiki and forum, BackupNetClone is largely based on the following great projects:

• rsnapshot (http://www.rsnapshot.org/)
• Rsync snapshots (http://www.backupcentral.com/components/com_mambowiki/index.php/Rsync_snapshots)
• Backups using rsync (http://www.sanitarium.net/golug/rsync_backups.html)
• Time Machine for every Unix (http://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.html)

Benjamin L. Brown, released to the Public Domain.