A few feature requests (16)

[orogor]

Hello

New user here, a lot of small request/suggestions ,while i have a fresh look at things.

1 On linux, can you put the config in /etc/ ?
notably /usr/local/var/urbackup/session_idents.txt has the server adress.

2 Clientside, i didn’t found where to put the path to backup, except from the client cmdline, can the client config, notably for the folders to be backed up be stored as text in /etc/urbackup?

3 In the server gui, can you add an input check ? i can put http://ip in the serer name, then deploy that to client, then client would timeout. i think saw at least another person on the forum make this mistake. Maybe use a host/ip switch so you can check the ip syntax is valid

4 can you put a large input box for the exclusion list, or allow to upload a file. I got an exclusion list for duplicity with 220 entries, syntax is like this
/.firefox/default.*/Cache/, basically all apps i ever used, an inc is 0kb unless i manually save a file.

6 I didnt tried it, but saw on the forums a script to fsck the backup folder, can you put a button in the gui to run it (possibly a progress bar)

7 Honestly the doc for the options is very nice, but i think it would be better if it was readable from the gui with a mouseover or a description box on the right, or put the question mark box everywhere or one per tab at least.

8 I dont really mind allowing client to change the backup settings, but could theses settings, like folders to backup show on the web ui?

9 Maybe for the client you could share some code by using a mini http server. when people click client icon this would start a browser. This would avoid coding different clients gui (syncthing does it).

10 At install i dont understand why the wizard allow snapshot of this or that kind of volume. I use lvm and zfs (btw i dont remember seing zfs snaps). Anyway, it s very nice to have this built in.

11 Can you allow to delete backups for the gui (i spammed inc backup, curious to see if some paging would happen) ? I saw in the forums i could delete the folders then run the fsck script, just a gui option is always good :).

12 I understand the interest of the archive option, however it become a bit difficult to imagine what happen. Could we get a small calendar preview that would account for inc/full+archives over a year, like colored 3-5pix wide squares, one per day?

13 I saw peoples suggesting to allow downloading vanilla agent from the web ui, and thought, any special reason to not allow configuring a clientless backup via smb or rsync (could copy the backuppc cmd line and do hash server side)? I think i would open options for a lot of peoples.

14 For the ldap stuff, i think it s better/simpler to use a search/proxy user to bind the ldap. then use that user to search some part of the ldap tree using a basedn
Still create users inside urbackup, but have a checkbox “ldap login” that will get the user pass from ldap using the proxyuser(lot of apps do this).

15. i tried to look at the conf files for the client, notably to find the client id and guess what happens if i start cloning using urbackup, is the client name fixed, could the backups end up being mixed up between clients after a clone?

16. At home i use duplicity since a few years and backuppc at the office, would you know if there are any migration path for moving the data from one or both to urbackup? Maybe restore by chunk to a temp folder and mark that as some other date/backup Number than today/current backup?

Hope you enjoyed the reading

[AETCO]

@orogor

4 can you put a large input box for the exclusion list, or allow to upload a file. I got an exclusion list for duplicity with 220 entries, syntax is like this/.firefox/default.*/Cache/, basically all apps i ever used, an inc is 0kb unless i manually save a file.

+1 from me I have a lot of exclusions, and I usually just copy the long string to a gedit window then make changes, then copy back. It’s a lot of work!

There are some good suggestions here, thanks.

[ttrammell]

@orogor

4 can you put a large input box for the exclusion list, or allow to upload a file. I got an exclusion list for duplicity with 220 entries, syntax is like this/.firefox/default.*/Cache/, basically all apps i ever used, an inc is 0kb unless i manually save a file.

If it is identical to another machine, you could just Ctrl+A + Ctrl+C + Ctrl+V from a completed machine exclusion list to another. I favor the idea, but it’s just a work around for you.

@orogor

7 Honestly the doc for the options is very nice, but i think it would be better if it was readable from the gui with a mouseover or a description box on the right, or put the question mark box everywhere or one per tab at least.

It used to be like this somewhat back on 1.14, but I think recently it has been more about backup function rather than web-interface fashion; however, completely in favor.

@orogor

8 I dont really mind allowing client to change the backup settings, but could theses settings, like folders to backup show on the web ui?

Isn’t that just setting the backup settings on a client inside the web-interface, or are you referring to something else?[quote=“orogor, post:1, topic:2585”]
11 Can you allow to delete backups for the gui (i spammed inc backup, curious to see if some paging would happen) ? I saw in the forums i could delete the folders then run the fsck script, just a gui option is always good :).
[/quote]

Nightly cleanup should already fix that problem; however, it may not start cleaning up until the set quota was reached.

@orogor

14 For the ldap stuff, i think it s better/simpler to use a search/proxy user to bind the ldap. then use that user to search some part of the ldap tree using a basedn Still create users inside urbackup, but have a checkbox “ldap login” that will get the user pass from ldap using the proxyuser(lot of apps do this).

Little difficult to understand what you are asking here, but couldn’t the same be done with a normal service account – one that is strictly just for the LDAP use in UrBackup?[quote=“orogor, post:1, topic:2585”]
15) i tried to look at the conf files for the client, notably to find the client id and guess what happens if i start cloning using urbackup, is the client name fixed, could the backups end up being mixed up between clients after a clone?
[/quote]

You can manually set the client names inside UrBackup if you think this will be an issue; however, you will need to keep up with any changes:

If the computer was named Computer-A and you named the computer inside the web-interface Computer-C, and then changed the name of the computer on the computer to Computer-B then – in theory – UrBackup will keep it as Computer-C.

@orogor

12 I understand the interest of the archive option, however it become a bit difficult to imagine what happen. Could we get a small calendar preview that would account for inc/full+archives over a year, like colored 3-5pix wide squares, one per day?

Not sure what you are referring to here, but does this help you? UrBackup - Server administration manual

@orogor

9 Maybe for the client you could share some code by using a mini http server. when people click client icon this would start a browser. This would avoid coding different clients gui (syncthing does it).

Not entirely sure what you are asking here; UrBackup has a function that can pull files on the Server from the client machine – don’t know how user friendly or how functional it actually is (because I have never used that myself), but there is a context menu option for it.

[orogor]

orogor:
8 I dont really mind allowing client to change the backup settings, but could theses settings, like folders to backup show on the web ui?
ttrammell:
Isn’t that just setting the backup settings on a client inside the web-interface, or are you referring to something else?
orogor
Something else, if i set some folder to be backed up clientside, this won’t show serverside (i go to settings and pick up a client). There’s 2 things being on client side and accessing the server web interface. And being client side and accessing the client web interface (my suggestion in the last question)

orogor:
11 Can you allow to delete backups for the gui (i spammed inc backup, curious to see if some paging would happen) ? I saw in the forums i could delete the folders then run the fsck script, just a gui option is always good :).
ttrammell:
Nightly cleanup should already fix that problem; however, it may not start cleaning up until the set quota was reached.
orogor
it s partly about running the script. In the gui, i found no way to delete specific backups (i can chose a backup and archive it, not delete it). I would sleep better at night knowing i interacted with the program interface rather than trying to hack the storage files.

orogor:
14 For the ldap stuff, i think it s better/simpler to use a search/proxy user to bind the ldap. then use that user to search some part of the ldap tree using a basedn Still create users inside urbackup, but have a checkbox “ldap login” that will get the user pass from ldap using the proxyuser(lot of apps do this).
ttrammell:
Little difficult to understand what you are asking here, but couldn’t the same be done with a normal service account – one that is strictly just for the LDAP use in UrBackup?
orogor
Maybe we think the same thing.
More simply, i would delete all the ldap setting, put only 4-5 options (service login,service pass,basedn, ldap,server, maybe a filter). Remove permission group key, class key, the permission mapping, user suffix, prefix.Handle that from the existing account management in urbackup. the service account being used only to retrieve the user pass.
The urbackup users would have to be manually created in urbackup and have permissions assigned there, but it would be more simple both to implement and configure and solve most uses cases.

orogor:
15) i tried to look at the conf files for the client, notably to find the client id and guess what happens if i start cloning using urbackup, is the client name fixed, could the backups end up being mixed up between clients after a clone?
You can manually set the client names inside UrBackup if you think this will be an issue; however, you will need to keep up with any changes:
ttrammell:
If the computer was named Computer-A and you named the computer inside the web-interface Computer-C, and then changed the name of the computer on the computer to Computer-B then – in theory – UrBackup will keep it as Computer-C.
orogor:
Thanks, that s what i thought. Peoples have a tendency to wildly clone vms and not think about regenerating unique computer id set inside some softwares like antiviruses. And this causes a backup mixup as more than one vm saves into the same computer on the backup server. I guess i ll have t find some solution to this at the office.

orogor:
12 I understand the interest of the archive option, however it become a bit difficult to imagine what happen. Could we get a small calendar preview that would account for inc/full+archives over a year, like colored 3-5pix wide squares, one per day?
ttrammell:
Not sure what you are referring to here, but does this help you? https://www.urbackup.org/administration_manual.html#x1-9600011.5
orogor
Honestly, it s a very good idea to have this info showing up on the already existing backup. What i was thinking was a predictive info when you setup backup rotation + archive (hence why i thought about a calendar). It s not a very important thing.

orogor:
9 Maybe for the client you could share some code by using a mini http server. when people click client icon this would start a browser. This would avoid coding different clients gui (syncthing does it).
ttrammell:
Not entirely sure what you are asking here; UrBackup has a function that can pull files on the Server from the client machine – don’t know how user friendly or how functional it actually is (because I have never used that myself), but there is a context menu option for it.
orogor:
To get the ‘heavy client’ working, it has to be coded on different plateforms. This require dev time. i suggest to forget the ‘heavy client’, and make urbackupclientbackend provide an http interface on maybe port 18765. Then the html code for the client setting from the server and all client plateforms could be shared. Then the installer would basically install a shortcut to “$BROWSER http://localhost:18765”.
i use urbackup at home . I didn’t get the gui client to work on linux i thought this would be the easiest fix.

[ttrammell]

@orogor

Something else, if i set some folder to be backed up clientside, this won’t show serverside (i go to settings and pick up a client). There’s 2 things being on client side and accessing the server web interface. And being client side and accessing the client web interface (my suggestion in the last question)

Ah. I never really used client-side settings so I didn’t know that those don’t match up when done like that – even though you think they would.

@orogor

it s partly about running the script. In the gui, i found no way to delete specific backups (i can chose a backup and archive it, not delete it). I would sleep better at night knowing i interacted with the program interface rather than trying to hack the storage files.

Very specific to just a few individuals, but I can understand why you would want that.

@orogor

Maybe we think the same thing.More simply, i would delete all the ldap setting, put only 4-5 options (service login,service pass,basedn, ldap,server, maybe a filter). Remove permission group key, class key, the permission mapping, user suffix, prefix.Handle that from the existing account management in urbackup. the service account being used only to retrieve the user pass.The urbackup users would have to be manually created in urbackup and have permissions assigned there, but it would be more simple both to implement and configure and solve most uses cases.

Not a big LDAP person, but I think I know what you’re getting at. Like an AD integration that only let’s certain people access certain backups.

If I am right about that – I dunno about that one; I mean it gives people a chance to recover any data themselves, but it’s like giving administrative tools to a groundskeeper. Good in theory, but probably would be rarely used or just become a bigger hassle for everyone later.

@orogor

Honestly, it s a very good idea to have this info showing up on the already existing backup. What i was thinking was a predictive info when you setup backup rotation + archive (hence why i thought about a calendar). It s not a very important thing.

So, just a calendar that tells you what backed up when and what time instead of something telling you when the very last backup happened?

… Eh, yeah. I can see where that may be useful; I’ll favor that one. Maybe just tack that onto the statistics page or something.

@orogor

To get the ‘heavy client’ working, it has to be coded on different plateforms. This require dev time. i suggest to forget the ‘heavy client’, and make urbackupclientbackend provide an http interface on maybe port 18765. Then the html code for the client setting from the server and all client plateforms could be shared. Then the installer would basically install a shortcut to “$BROWSER http://localhost:18765”. i use urbackup at home . I didn’t get the gui client to work on linux i thought this would be the easiest fix.

I know what you are getting at now; I am not a programmer, so I could not think of how possible or impossible that is. It sounds impossible do that without a client, but I have been wrong before.