Deploying Suse Linux Enterprise Server

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Deploying BackupPC on SLES

Working with the Web Interface

Probably the greatest advantage of using BackupPC over other backup solutions is the easy-to-use Web Interface it provides. No longer must you mount various tapes, search for files and hope that the tape is still good in order to restore a deleted file or "roll back" to a previous version of a file. Also, since the web interface is so easy to use, you can assign different people in your organization the ability to restore files if needed (reguardless of their technical ability).

Accessing the Web Interface

By Default, you access the BackupPC's Web Interface through the link:

http://hostname/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin

Where hostname is the name of the BackupPC Server, or you can use the server's IP Address if you do not have a properly setup DNS Server (use "localhost" if accessing the site on the BackupPC Server).

To avoid having your backup users remember that link, I highly recommend using a HTML redirect so all they would have to do is simply enter the hostname or the IP address of the BackupPC server into their browser. You can do this by placing the following in the index.html file located at /srv/www/htdocs/index.html

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; URL=/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin">
<title>BackupPC Redirect Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><a href="/cgi-bin/BackupPC_Admin">BackupPC Web Interface</a></p>
</body>

Once the redirect is in place, if you go to "http://hostname/" in a web browser, the page will immediately redirect to the correct page. Note that you may want to add to the redirect page, such as adding a legal disclaimer (and either lengthing the time for the redirect or remove the redirect altogether to force the user to click on the link). If everything is setup properly, once the redirect takes place a dialog box should be presented to the user asking for a username and password.

Using the Web Interface

If you have gotten this far in your server setup, you will probably be able to figure out the web interface on your own, so I will just go over a few items that you should be aware of.

The Web Interface's Status Screen and the Host Summary Screen

Status Screen - This page allows you to monitor your BackupPC server. Here you can ensure that you have enough drive space available for future backups, how much space has been used, view any currently running jobs and view any errors that you may need to address.

Host Summary Screen - This page gives you specific information about a certain host you have configured to backup. Here you can start or stop a backup, browse any of the backups, view any errors that may have occurred, and view file information about the host (compression information, file totals, etc.

Browsing a Backup through the Web Interface and Restoring a file

Browsing Backups - When you click on a backup number on a host screen, the Browse Backups page comes up. Here you can browse the backup using a tree view with the directory structure on the left and the contents of the current directory on the right. Here you can click on a file to open it on your computer, or you can check it and perform a restore.

Restoring Files - When you check a file (or files) to restore, you will be presented with the Restore Screen. Here you are given various options to restore the files. First you can directly restore the file on the client machine. This will overright the file on the client (if it exists) so rename the file first if needed. Note that the direct restore may or may not work depending how you setup the client (if you set it to read only it will not work). The other options to restore a file include downloading a compressed file containing all of the files you selected to restore, this can be in either ZIP format or TAR format.

Adjusting the Server Behaviour through the Web Interface

BackupPC now offers the ability to adjust it's configuration files through it's Web Interface. This is a very welcome feature as you no longer have to worry about errors when editing the configuration file(s).

Modifying the Config File through the Web Interface and adding a host

Configuration Editor - When you click on the "Edit Config" link from the "Server Status Screen" you are given the ability to adjust the server configuration through the Web Interface. This is nice as it provides a structured way to edit the configuration file(s), as well as give you a direct link to the option you can configure. For more information on all of the configuration options just click on the option!

Just remember that when you add a host through the web interface, you will still need to manually create a hostname.pl file within the /etc/BackupPC/pc directory to fine tune the options for that host (if it differs from the procedures specified in the main configuration file).