rsync with IBackup Advantages
- Provides Snapshots*, ability to restore from a historical view of backed up data
- World-class security with RAID protected storage that is mirrored onto another set of devices for additional protection
- Browser-based access to backed up data from anywhere
- With Stunnel, provides 128-bit SSL encryption for data during transmission
- Fast wire compressed incremental transfers for optimal resource utilization
- Easily scriptable and customizable
Backup and Restore using rsync with IBackup
To use this utility with your IBackup account, enter your IBackup Username or email and click 'GO'. This lists the steps involved in the backup or restore process.
Find below an example of the steps involved in the backup or restore process. To get the exact syntax to be used for your account, enter the email id or username in the box above.
Install rsync, if it is not already installed on your Linux computer from rsync's website: http://rsync.samba.org
To backup a directory to your IBackup account, run the following command from the shell:
$ rsync -r -v -z -t <your_directory> <ibackup username>@rsync4.ibackup.com::ibackup
For example, to backup the directory /home/mydata to your IBackup account with the username say john, you would run:
$ rsync -r -v -z -t /home/mydata john@rsync4.ibackup.com::ibackup
You are prompted to enter your IBackup password.
If you do not wish to be prompted for a password, then set the following shell variable to your IBackup password and run the rsync command:
$ export RSYNC_PASSWORD=<your ibackup password>
Connections via rsync are not secure by default. However, you can secure your rsync connection to IBackup using SSL, by running stunnel.
With Stunnel version 4
$ stunnel /usr/local/stunnel/stunnel.conf
(assuming that the Stunnel configuration file is at /usr/local/stunnel directory)
Following is an example content of stunnel.conf file:
client = yes
[ibackup]
accept = 45873
connect = rsync4.ibackup.com:5000
and then run rsync through your local stunnel to encrypt the connection to IBackup using SSL.
$ rsync -r -v -z -t /home/mydata john@localhost::ibackup --port=45873
While you may use any port for your localhost instead of 45873, you need to use port 5000 for the remote stunnel connection to IBackup's rsync server.
If you are behind a firewall, setup your firewall to allow port 5000.
If you use /etc/hosts.allow method to control IPs that have access to certain services on your Linux server, then add an entry as follows:
ALL: 127.0.0.1
You can schedule rsync to run on a regular basis using cron.
With Stunnel version 3
Run Stunnel on your Linux server:
$ stunnel -c -d localhost:45873 -r rsync4.ibackup.com:5000
Next, run rsync through your local stunnel to encrypt the connection to IBackup using SSL.
$ rsync -r -v -z -t /home/mydata john@localhost::ibackup --port=45873
Restore using rsync with IBackup
$ rsync -r -v -z -t <ibackup username>@rsync4.ibackup.com::ibackup/ <your directory in IBackup Account> <destination directory on local machine>
* Snapshots are point-in-time images of data stored on IBackup servers. The daily available snapshots are currently set to 10 but may change without notice.