What to do about Crashplan on 9.10?

[adrianwi]

No idea, as I don't know how easy, or whether it will even be possible, to migrate them to FreeNAS10.

 

[diskdiddler]

In all seriousness, where should we discuss an alternative to crashplan? These people do not deserve our money in any capacity, they do awful things, even to their paying customers for goodness sakes.

We need an alternative.

 

[diskdiddler]

In all seriousness, where should we discuss an alternative to crashplan? These people do not deserve our money in any capacity, they do awful things, even to their paying customers for goodness sakes.

We need an alternative.

 

[Stux]

Backblaze, Rsync.net?

 

[danb35]

There are lots of alternatives, all considerably more expensive and/or without a nice GUI. But what "awful things" are CrashPlan doing to their paying customers who are on supported platforms?

 

[diskdiddler]

2 years ago: introduce AWFUL regional pricing on Australia, ripping them off by a huge margin vs the world.
recently, not just not offering support to non standard platforms, but what seems like actively blocking non standard platforms.
WHO CARES WHAT PLATFORM - they are paying for the data to be there, PERIOD.

Also endlessly breaking upgrade process - feels close to deliberate sabotage.

 

[danb35]

WHO CARES WHAT PLATFORM - they are paying for the data to be there, PERIOD.

No, not really. Crashplan isn't just data storage; it's also the client software to do the data backup. That software is written to run on Windows, Mac, and Linux (by virtue of being a Java blob), not FreeBSD. It can be made to run on FreeBSD with a fair amount of tinkering, which may or may not survive the next update cycle, but it's not designed for that. We're using the software in an unintended (and unsupported) application, and thus it shouldn't be a huge surprise when it doesn't work properly. My experience (and that of others who have posted) is that Crashplan works just fine on a supported platform (in my case, running in an Ubuntu VM).

If you're tired of the hacks needed to make Crashplan run under FreeNAS, I get it. I'm frustrated myself, which is why I gave up and installed it under Linux instead. Something that wasn't Java-based, ran natively under FreeBSD, supported encrypted backups (which CP does), (optionally but preferably) had a nice GUI that I could access either via remote client software or through a web browser, and still cost $50/year for unlimited data, would be great, and I'd jump ship in a heartbeat. But I'm not seeing any options that will handle the 4 TB of data I'm backing up for twice, or even three times, that cost.

 

[m0nkey_]

Why not a Ubuntu VM running CrashPlan on bhyve? If you're on 9.10 you already have bhyve. Check out iohyve in the documentation, http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/freenas_jails.html#using-iohyve

 

[diskdiddler]

I'm still reluctant to switch to 9.10 because of plugins. Plus people seem to keep posting issues with 9.10 upgrades, it sounds like more work needs to be done before I'll switch

 

[diskdiddler]

They got Windows / FreeNAS clients by any chance?

 

[millst]

I'm running unsupported and dealing with it because I don't want to dedicate the memory to a VM. If it gets worse, maybe I'll just buy another 16GB and go that route.

-tm

 

[nello]

... simple ...

I have Crashplan 4.7 running on Ubuntu 14 in VirtualBox on my FreeNAS server.

How do I configure CrashPlan to (continue to) use the existing FreeNAS Volume? In other words, how do I mount the existing Volume so that it is accessible and writable as a Crashplan destination? I want to Adopt my existing backups, not start over from scratch.

My existing backups are at /mnt/red/crashPlanOctoberGroupNAS I've set this as the Source for the VirtualBox Jail Storage. What should be the VirtualBox Jail Storage Destination ... and how do I connect this Destination to Ubuntu so that Crashplan can see it?!?

Yes, I tried Sharing the directory to the Crashplan machine within VirtualBox:

How is this supposed to work?

Thank you for your help.

- nello

 

[danb35]

Using Shared Folders in VirtualBox requires that you mount the desired directory to the VB jail as storage, then set it up as a shared folder in VB, and also have the VB guest extensions installed in the guest OS. An alternative would be to share the desired directory (e.g., via NFS) and mount it in the guest machine. I'd think that would be simpler, with fewer moving pieces.

 

[nello]

Using Shared Folders in VirtualBox requires ... and also have the VB guest extensions installed in the guest OS.

I presume you are referring to the "VirtualBox Guest Additions," which I installed. But even though the installation threw no errors and seemed to complete, I don't see any evidence that they are actually working. For example, I'm not able to resize the screen or change the screen resolution. Your comment corroborates that they aren't installed (correctly). sigh!

An alternative would be to share the desired directory (e.g., via NFS) and mount it in the guest machine. I'd think that would be simpler, with fewer moving pieces.

I'm hesitant to create a share because it creates an extra surface for an attack. Is this a silly concern?

 

[Nick2253]

I'm hesitant to create a share because it creates an extra surface for an attack. Is this a silly concern?

Assuming your network is controlled, and all people who have access to your server are trusted, then I would say it's a silly concern. FreeNAS is not a hardened appliance, designed to exist out in the wild, which means that if an attacker breached your network, there's probably more than one way they could get in to your server, whether or not you share the folder.

If you are still paranoid, there are ways to secure NFS to only be accessible by certain IP addresses or subnets. You could also make it a read-only share, which minimizes any kind of disruption possible.

If you are truly paranoid, I would be more worried about CrashPlan leaking my data than my network. In that case, I would properly encrypt all the data before uploading it (or making it available to CrashPlan), which (in theory) means anyone could get their hands on it, and it would be worthless to them.

 

[danb35]

You could also make it a read-only share, which minimizes any kind of disruption possible.

...except that he seems to be talking about the dataset on his server where backups are stored (i.e., other machines on his network are using CrashPlan to back up to the FreeNAS box), which means it would have to be mounted read/write.

In that case, I would properly encrypt all the data before uploading it

CrashPlan does support encrypting your data with a locally-generated key which isn't shared with their servers, so that's a definite possibility.

 

[nello]

… share the desired directory (e.g., via NFS) and mount it in the guest machine.

I created an NFS share for the Destination of Crashplan backup files

The NFS Service is turned on

But, within Crashplan running in VirtualBox under Ubuntu 14, I don't see the share when I try to select the backup Destination

Is there a problem with the NFS service?

Code:

Aug  6 18:28:54 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: Starting rpcbind.
Aug  6 18:28:54 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: Starting mountd.
Aug  6 18:28:55 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: NFSv4 is disabled
Aug  6 18:28:55 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: Starting nfsd.
Aug  6 18:28:55 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: Starting statd.
Aug  6 18:28:55 OctoberGroupNAS notifier: Starting lockd.
Aug  6 18:28:55 OctoberGroupNAS nfsd: can't register svc name

Something else?



Update 2016.08.06

I tried to mount the share from my iMac and I get this error:

Code:

[root@OctoberGroupNAS /mnt/red]# ls -Al                                        
total 232                                                                      
...  
drwxrwx---  15 crashPlan  backup  17 May  2 12:58 crashPlanOctoberGroupNAS    
...               
[root@OctoberGroupNAS /mnt/red]#

So, I guess that I need to figure out the permissions problem.


Update 2016.08.06

These settings for Apple File Protocol (AFP) Sharing work:

What would be the corresponding settings for NFS Sharing?

 

[fracai]

How are you trying to mount the NFS volume in your Ubuntu VM?
I have it configured with AutoFS.

 

[nello]

How are you trying to mount the NFS volume in your Ubuntu VM?
I have it configured with AutoFS.

Yes, exactly. I have existing CrashPlan archives built by the CrashPlan plugin. I'd like to keep using them from my Ubuntu VM.

Would you please give me some details on how to do this? How do I get AutoFS installed?

Thank you.

 

[danb35]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mount+nfs+ubuntu