Seriously Easy Backup Solution

I was messing around with the Apple Time Machine to try and get it to backup to my NAS-like network device (the Linksys NSLU2) but with the latest update (10.5.2) the simple hack of allowing non-supported drives to be seen by time machine doesn't work. It only works if you've managed to use the hack before the update and that way already have a time machine backup on a network drive. I haven't, and the "new" hack that's out was a bit too much of a hassle.

Reading through some comments somewhere on the 'net, I followed a link to CrashPlan which is an "Automatic Offsite Backup" tool. The beauty of the beast is that (apart from $20 in license per computer you want to backup) it can be free to use! You can choose to use their central backup server ($0.10 per GB, min $5 per month) or if you have multiple computers you can use the software to backup from one to another. The files are encrypted with a private key, and compressed, before they're send off, so there's even an option of having your files backup on a friends computer - without worrying about his security setup, virus attacks etc.

The software is awailable for OS X, Linux and Windows, and I've set it up on an iBook G4 and a Dell Latitude running Ubuntu. The only problem I had installing it on my Ubuntu laptop, was that first I didn't have a new enough Java (needs 1.5+) and second it wouldn't recognise it once I installed it. In the end I settled for having the installer download it for me, but not even that worked as the server/engine part of the software would start. Unfortunately nothing was mentioned in log-files, FAQs or other logical places, about the server not wanting to start up, so after a bit of pocking around I tried to change the java path in "install.vars" to where I had installed jdk 1.6.0. That got the server part up and running, and once that was done it was no problem at all getting the two machines linked up and backing up my mac to my linux. The nice thing is, that since they're both on the same local network CrashPlan wont need to use my broadband to transfer the files, and they were send over the wireless in no time :)

Now, the docs coming with the linux install has description of how to connect to a CrashPlan engine (the server bit of the software) on a head-less server (i.e. no gui) so in theory I should be able to set it up on my Textdrive server (if the sysadmins will allow me and I can get a designated port. The port should be easy as I've previously gotten a dedicated port for my own webserver while I was playing around with ruby :) to use the server as a backup might be harder as they have their own remote-backup solution). However, I think I might just do with my local backup for now, or perhaps arrange to host backups for some of the family in return for them hosting mine...

Either way you look at it, CrashPlan is a seriously cool piece of kit, and should be well worth the $20 price tag (you can install the software as a "destination only" for free, but then you can't backup that machine anywhere else)