First, I’d like to thank you for UrBackup. I’ve been using it for many years across a mixed Windows and Linux environment and it has become one of my favorite backup solutions.
One area that still seems unnecessarily difficult is restoring files to headless Linux clients.
I understand the current security model:
- client-confirms
- server-confirms
- disabled
and I understand why the restore mode is configured on the client rather than pushed from the server. I agree that allowing the server to silently enable restores would weaken the security model.
However, from an administrator’s perspective, the workflow is still awkward.
A typical environment may have dozens of linux servers with no GUI. In order to use the Restore button in the web interface, each client must first be manually configured with:
RESTORE=server-confirms
After discovering this requirement (which isn’t immediately obvious when the Restore button simply isn’t present), the experience becomes much better because the web Restore operation uses the client to restore the file, preserving Linux ownership, permissions, ACLs, extended attributes, etc.
I have two suggestions that I think would improve the user experience without changing the existing security model.
- Better visibility
If a client has restores disabled, instead of hiding the Restore button entirely, show a disabled Restore button or an informational message such as:
“Remote restores are disabled on this client (RESTORE=disabled or client-confirms).”
This would make it much easier to understand why restoring isn’t available.
- Make enabling remote restore easier
It would be helpful if the Linux installer or package installation prompted whether to enable:
RESTORE=server-confirms
or if this could be exposed more prominently in the client configuration.
This would be especially useful for headless linux servers where there is no GUI confirmation anyway.
I am not suggesting that the server be allowed to change this setting remotely, as I understand the security implications. Rather, I’m suggesting improvements to discoverability and usability while preserving the existing security architecture.
I think these small changes would make Linux restores feel much more comparable to the excellent Windows restore experience.