What sync software are you using with Windows?

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I am looking for software to use on my windows boxes to backup that data to the freenas box. I have played with freefilesync but i figured I would check to see if there is something better/easier.

I would like the sync software to run nightly to send data from my desktops to subfolders on the freenas box.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Jailer]

Synctoy and set it up as a scheduled task. Alternatively there is dsyncronize that works well too.

 

[RichTJ99]

So i really like the dsyncronize - looks like it is really lightweight.

I am getting an error message:

Access Rights error in destination path

If I set the path to my local hard drive its no problem. If I set the path to the Y drive (mapped folder) or //nas1 i get the error. Very strange.

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi,

I am looking for software to use on my windows boxes to backup that data to the freenas box. I have played with freefilesync but i figured I would check to see if there is something better/easier.

I would like the sync software to run nightly to send data from my desktops to subfolders on the freenas box.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Rich

I use the free version of Macrium Reflect to image my Windows PCs and store the image files on my FreeNAS server. You can execute it with Task Scheduler and the resulting images can be mounted and browsed for individual file extraction if the need arises. Good stuff, but may not be exactly what you're looking for.

 

[anodos]

Robocopy works well. I also have used syncbackfree.

 

[melloa]

urbackup running a server on a jail and clients on windows @ home.

 

[pirateghost]

Delta Copy

 

[RichTJ99]

Robocopy works well. I also have used syncbackfree.

So I see they have a bunch of Robocopy gui upgrades which look interesting. Seems there are many ways to skin this cat!

 

[RichTJ99]

urbackup running a server on a jail and clients on windows @ home.

This one is also an interesting choice. Does it do a file by file copy or a full backup?

 

[RichTJ99]

Delta Copy

This is really interesting. I tend to back up part of the windows profiles - desktop, documents, downloads, etc. Do you set those up as individual directories or do you put the whole profile out for Rsync?

Any concerns about security on a local network?

 

[pirateghost]

This is really interesting. I tend to back up part of the windows profiles - desktop, documents, downloads, etc. Do you set those up as individual directories or do you put the whole profile out for Rsync?

Any concerns about security on a local network?

I set up the entire profile as an rsync directory, and FreeNAS goes and grabs the data based on an rsync job I have set. I also have a text file that has excludes in it to prevent attempting to back up cache directories and certain files.


Not sure what you mean about security on the local network. It's just 3 people. Myself, my wife, and our son. There are no secrets in our house when it comes to anything technology or IT related.

 

[RichTJ99]

I set up the entire profile as an rsync directory, and FreeNAS goes and grabs the data based on an rsync job I have set. I also have a text file that has excludes in it to prevent attempting to back up cache directories and certain files.


Not sure what you mean about security on the local network. It's just 3 people. Myself, my wife, and our son. There are no secrets in our house when it comes to anything technology or IT related.

I am trying it now on a VM. I setup Deltacopy server, added a new virtual directory (Sync) that is the user profile on that VM. I have it running as a service.

I then went to Freenas, Rsync tasks & added a new one pointing to where I want it on the freenas box, put the remote VM IP, remote module name is Sync & Freenas is pulling.

I hit run but nothing seems to be happening (when using root as the user). When using richtj99 i get this:

Aug 23 14:08:16 Nas1 python2: _secure_path: /nonexistent/.login_conf is not owned by uid 1010

Either way nothing shows up on freenas.

Can you share your text file? Where does it go for the excludes? What do you exclude?


In terms of security I meant more like someone comes to your home & is on your wifi network (something like that). Seeing as I have a 2nd backup only freenas box which is Rsyncing already I guess its not something I should worry about - since its already open.

 

[RichTJ99]

I take it all back - it started working for some reason. Can you tell me more about your excludes? That would be great.

 

[pirateghost]

I am trying it now on a VM. I setup Deltacopy server, added a new virtual directory (Sync) that is the user profile on that VM. I have it running as a service.

I then went to Freenas, Rsync tasks & added a new one pointing to where I want it on the freenas box, put the remote VM IP, remote module name is Sync & Freenas is pulling.

I hit run but nothing seems to be happening (when using root as the user). When using richtj99 i get this:

Aug 23 14:08:16 Nas1 python2: _secure_path: /nonexistent/.login_conf is not owned by uid 1010

Either way nothing shows up on freenas.

Can you share your text file? Where does it go for the excludes? What do you exclude?


In terms of security I meant more like someone comes to your home & is on your wifi network (something like that). Seeing as I have a 2nd backup only freenas box which is Rsyncing already I guess its not something I should worry about - since its already open.

My excludes are merely for cache and files that do not need to be backed up. I placed it somewhere on my freenas box and added it to the command line options for my freenas rsync task. I didn't do anything odd to set this up.

For security, there is nobody allowed on my network except for myself, my wife, and our son. Anyone else that wants to connect can use the guest WiFi.

 

[RichTJ99]

Thanks - I ended up adding to the "extra options" part of Rsync:

--exclude='*.bak' --exclude="AppData/" --exclude="Local Settings/" --exclude="Application Data/" --exclude="Cookies/" --exclude="NetHood/" --exclude="PrintHood/"

This took care of most of it. If I have three separate directories, folder1, folder2, and folder3, I am guessing I need to setup 3 different Rsync directories in Deltacopy & 3 Rsync tasks in Freenas?

 

[RichTJ99]

For security, there is nobody allowed on my network except for myself, my wife, and our son. Anyone else that wants to connect can use the guest WiFi.

I see that the Deltacopy server side allows a username / password. I wouldnt mind locking it up. My network has my wife, three kids, my mother & other family members over periodically. We have a main wireless, that could have been given out to my kids friends (very likely).

My desktop (the one running deltacopy) has password protected folders so I feel at least there is some security. It seems that Rsync is wide open for a sync elsewhere.

I did try creating a new user in freenas & matching up the username / password for hte user but Delta copy doesnt seem to like it.

Freenas says:

IP Address or hostname. Specify user@hostname or user@ip-address if your remote machine user and above rsync task user are different.

Any ideas how to make it a user/password on the freenas Rsync side?

Instead of richtj99@192.168.1.5 maybe richtj99/password@192.168.1.5

This would allow at least some sort of password protection on the windows Rsync boxes?


The manual says:

If the rysnc server requires password authentication, input –password-file=/PATHTO/FILENAME in the “Extra options” box, replacing /PATHTO/FILENAME with the appropriate path to the file containing the value of the password.


Where do you think you put this file & what type of file?

 

[pirateghost]

I'm not sure about setting up a user/pass, but the only way they are going to access your rsync server is by running an rsync job themselves....they would have to know it's there and know what to connect to.

Do your kids friends or your family know how to do that?

Is there some reason you don't use a guest network for....guests?

 

[Jailer]

We have a main wireless, that could have been given out to my kids friends (very likely).

You need an AP guest network to keep "guests" off your LAN.

 

[RichTJ99]

I'm not sure about setting up a user/pass, but the only way they are going to access your rsync server is by running an rsync job themselves....they would have to know it's there and know what to connect to.

Do your kids friends or your family know how to do that?

Is there some reason you don't use a guest network for....guests?

I would doubt anyone knows how to setup a Rysnc job. I was more curious if there is a way for an average person to 'scan' for it.

I did create a file in Vi called pwd, i put the test password in (test) and it is in the right path. It doesnt kick back an error message but it doesnt seem to be doing anything either.

I have a bunch of Ubquiti wifi access points & Pfsense as my router so I can probably set it all up. Really it had to do more with my printers being on the same network as the wireless laptops & other devices. My kids like to play Lan minecraft on their Idevices with their friends, so the friends need to be on the same network, etc.

 

[RichTJ99]

This is strange, when i save the file which is just the pwd file (Test123 as password) this pops up in the log:

Aug 23 16:03:37 Nas1 python2: _secure_path: /nonexistent/.login_conf is not owned by uid 1010
Aug 23 16:11:17 Nas1 notifier: Traceback (most recent call last):
Aug 23 16:11:17 Nas1 notifier: File "/usr/local/www/freenasUI/middleware/notifier.py", line 6131, in <module>
Aug 23 16:11:17 Nas1 notifier: print res
Aug 23 16:11:17 Nas1 notifier: UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\u2013' in position 104: ordinal not in range(128)


I dont really know what would be wrong with the character.