http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/ This is an XML content feed of; BuddyBackup Forum : Last 10 Posts Copyright (c) 2006-2011 Web Wiz Forums - All Rights Reserved. Sat, 19 May 2012 21:38:10 +0000 Mon, 14 May 2012 09:38:20 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 10.01 30 www.buddybackup.com/forum/RSS_topic_feed.asp http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_images/logo.gif http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/ http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=535&PID=1092&title=bb-has-lost-your-backed-up-data-error#1092 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: BB has lost your backed up data error
Posted: 14/May/2012 at 9:38am

Hello,

I had the following error message on my BB peer on start-up, which is used for incoming Buddies only:

BuddyBackup has encountered a problem and has lost your backed up data. You will need to re-add any missing folders.

- I have checked the properties of all my incoming buddies and the "data size backed up onto me" is correctly reported.

- I have checked the "Data stored on this Buddy" on the actual Buddies and this is correctly reported.

- All the folders inside OtherPeoplesFolders folders are present.

- The backup location is set correctly.

- Shared space used is reading 0.

- Rebooting the PC does not fix the problem.

What would cause such an error?

How do I fix this problem?

Regards
Paul]]> Mon, 14 May 2012 09:38:20 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=535&title=bb-has-lost-your-backed-up-data-error http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&PID=1090&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc#1090 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: Adding a second Safety PC
Posted: 05/May/2012 at 7:54pm

Hello,

Yes ultimately A & B will be in two separate locations for extra offsite redundancy. Eventually I need to have a procedure in place so if in worst case A or B gets stolen, it can be replaced quickly without the need for customers to re-upload all their data. If BB could develop such a facility, this would be a great benefit.

Currently the amount of data stored by my customers is small, so I could add a second safety PC without too much trouble, but if 100Gb turns into 1000Gb this is a bigger problem, especially with bandwidth.

I will need to obtain a better understanding of how BB works so I can implement an appropriate backup strategy. What is the relationship between the BB database and the "OtherPeoplesFiles’ folder? I.e. if I need to replace a hard drive that contained the BB database and I restore it from a pervious days backup (made using Acronis for example) do I need to restore the "OtherPeoplesFiles’ folder to the previous day as well and vice versa?

I will put together a test setup so hopefully with your help I can experiment, but this will take a while as I need to get B up and running first.

Regards
Paul
]]> Sat, 05 May 2012 19:54:58 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=533&PID=1089&title=fr-30-day-peer-side-retention-policy#1089 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: F.R. 30 day peer side retention policy.
Posted: 05/May/2012 at 6:16pm

Hello,

If BB could incorporate a 30 day peer side retention policy that would be fantastic!

I would like to be able to recover from the following scenarios:

1) Accidental or malicious de-selection of a file or folder from the ‘Choose Backup’ menu without having to re-upload the file or folder.

2) Accidental or malicious uninstall of BB again without the need to re-upload all my files and folders.

3) Stolen equipment.

Any form of configurable automated notification system would be a benefit.

Perhaps for 1) the end user to be notified a week before the file/folder is permanently deleted.

For 2) both parties should be notified immediately so confirmation that BB was uninstalled intentionally can be confirmed. A retained configuration file to facilitate reinstallation of BB would be a great a benefit.

For 3) The end user should contact their Buddy peers. However a mechanism for reporting stolen equipment via the web would help. BB could then start to implement other actions here, perhaps for usernames & passwords to be changed for example. 30 days would give ample time to recover from such a scenario.

Regards
Paul
]]> Sat, 05 May 2012 18:16:10 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=533&title=fr-30-day-peer-side-retention-policy http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&PID=1088&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen#1088 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: What happens if laptop stolen?
Posted: 05/May/2012 at 5:27pm

Hello,

I agree responsibility is split here; encrypting a laptop, protecting passwords and the consequences if a laptop is stolen should be the end users responsibility. Ensuring that data can be retrieved should be BBs responsibility.

If BB could incorporate a 30 day peer side retention policy that would be fantastic!

This would negate the need to re-upload a file/folder if it is accidently deselected from the ‘Choose Backup’ menu and provide an opportunity to deal with the ‘stolen equipment’ scenario.

The end user should report if equipment is stolen, but any additional automated notification system would be beneficial. A telephone call to the end user can always negate any "hey don't worry about this" attempts.

I will submit a Feature Request. Thanks to Dave for raising an important topic.

Regards
Paul
]]> Sat, 05 May 2012 17:27:13 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&PID=1087&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc#1087 Author: John
Subject: Adding a second Safety PC
Posted: 30/April/2012 at 6:28pm

Hmm good question. There is no way to do this easily.

Just one question: are A and B ultimately going to be located at the same place?

If they're not then I can see why you want to do this (as you get extra offsite redundancy).

If they ARE at the same place, then I'm not sure what the point is. If you were really just after redundancy that wasn't offsite, then it's much better to just use RAID or mirroring or folder syncing or something.

(Software RAID is actually easy on Windows 7 - I do this on my home server).

I'm going to assume that what you're talking about is having two servers at different locations.

So, your specific questions:

1. Maybe... possibly. You'd have to certainly copy the "OtherPeoplesFiles" folder and definitely some parts of the database (buddybackup.db) (but leaving everything else unchanged). I have never tried this and it might work. Might be worth experimenting. Be careful though, as if you get it wrong you could make your buddies think their backups don't exist any more.

2. Uhhh good question. I'm honestly not sure if you can do this (i.e. export C's data from A to B). This wasn't the intent, but again it might just work...

3. Yes - no way around this

4. It round robins between them. It should prioritise less well backed up files first.

5. No this isn't possible unfortunately.

John
]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:28:02 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&PID=1086&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc#1086 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: Adding a second Safety PC
Posted: 29/April/2012 at 3:25pm

Hello,

I currently have several customers backing up to one backup computer ‘A’. The data is stored on a dedicated hard drive ‘d’.

I would like to introduce a second backup computer ‘B’ to increase the Backup Safety to 2.

I need to avoid having customers backup their entire data again, over the internet, to ‘B’.

I also need to avoid having to revisit each customer to run a manual export to a USB drive and import to B.

A and B will remain on the same LAN whist I carryout this process (ports set as required).

1. After setting up a new Account/Backup Location on B and modifying the customer’s settings as required, is it possible to just manually copy the customer’s folders from A to B?

2. Do I need to make use of the Export / Import facility to do this properly? I tried with a test account but only a third of the data would export.

3. Does this mean that once all data is on both machines the amount of data the customers uploads henceforth is doubled?

4. Does the customer backup to A first then B or to both simultaneously?

5. Is it possible to channel the flow of data is anyway. I.E. Customer to A, then A to B?

Regards
Paul
]]> Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:25:19 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=532&title=adding-a-second-safety-pc http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&PID=1085&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen#1085 Author: John
Subject: What happens if laptop stolen?
Posted: 29/April/2012 at 2:06pm

Paul makes some good points here.

One option is to make BB peers keep backups for, say, 30 days even when instructed to delete them, so you can always get them back in a malicious attack (would also be useful for accidental deletion).

I still think that it's probably the user's responsibility to encrypt their laptop (for example using BitLocker or equivalent).

Remember if they have access to BuddyBackup on that computer, then they probably have access to EVERYTHING. So, if they were particularly minded, they could use your e-mail or instant messaging to email your buddies to say "hey don't worry about this".

I'm not minimising the fact that BB could do better to protect users here, but just saying that worrying about an attacker malicously deleting your backups seems less important when then have access to your e-mail, web history and possibly even credit cards!

Good points though.

John
]]> Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:06:07 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&PID=1082&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen#1082 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: What happens if laptop stolen?
Posted: 28/April/2012 at 1:05pm

Hello,

I would like to add to this topic as I think Dave and infiltrator25 have made some very important points.

Stolen equipment scenario

I think this scenario is something that BB must fundamentally be able to guard against. A strong selling point for any online backup system is that customers can still retrieve their data, even if their equipment is stolen. If I understand correctly, BB is still venerable here.

The only practical way I can think of to guard against this scenario, is for BB to incorporate some sort of retention policy that can only be set on the Buddy the data is being stored on. That way if the Buddy receives an instruction to delete all files, significant percentage of or remove the Buddy completely, BB should present an opportunity to the person storing the data to check with the actual person that this is what they want. For those with multiple Buddies maybe there needs to be a ‘Master’ buddy selected to perform this role.

Ultimately BB itself must work in such a way as to protect the user in this scenario. Passwords, encryption or 3rd party products should only be considered as additional precautions a user can take. I would be weary of other encryption used outside of BB in case this unintentionally prevents accessing restored files (though I am certainly no expert in this area).

A nice-to-have would be a mechanism for reporting if equipment is stolen via a webpage so appropriate action could be taken.

Unauthorised or accidental changes

I agree that access to the GUI should always be allowed and that backups should run. However for those providing a backup service I differ in respect that I think the option of password protecting settings is a must. If I understand BB correctly, I am currently reliant upon my customers not fiddling with settings and cannot prevent an individual customer increasing the amount of data they backup to me. I really need the option of being in full control of what a customer can and cannot do. Customers should still be able to change what is backed up and retrieve files without needing the ‘settings’ password.

I very nice-to-have would be the ability of globally & individually controlling customer settings via a webpage.

Regards
Paul
]]> Sat, 28 Apr 2012 13:05:11 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=321&title=what-happens-if-laptop-stolen http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=530&PID=1081&title=understanding-when-backups-are-deleted#1081 Author: Amber Computers
Subject: Understanding when backups are deleted
Posted: 28/April/2012 at 10:20am

Hello,

Thanks for the explanation.

I ran a manual cleanup to remove anything older than 1 day and the ‘Backup status’ and ‘Restore’ tree now match my current folder structure.

I think I confused the date when I actually deleted some files.

Now I need to check that I understand what happens when a file is not deleted and has many versions. After 30 days (when set in advanced) does BB start to drop of versions older than 30 days when the chain allows?

Regards
Paul
]]> Sat, 28 Apr 2012 10:20:06 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=530&title=understanding-when-backups-are-deleted http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=530&PID=1079&title=understanding-when-backups-are-deleted#1079 Author: John
Subject: Understanding when backups are deleted
Posted: 27/April/2012 at 10:52pm

To answer your specific example, you should check the setting in Advanced: "Automatically remove backups older than...".  I think this is off by default so BB will never remove backups.

You can either turn this on, or run manual cleanups when you feel like it.

Generally speaking, when you run the cleanup BB will remove backups of a file after 30 days from the moment it first sees the file doesn't exist any more (doesn't matter if it's been sent to recycle bin, fully deleted or even just moved out of BB's world view - just being absent is the key thing).

However, if the file has several versions it may not be able to delete earlier versions even if they're older than the 30 days, if there are newer versions. This is because the versions are "chained": each subsequent version is a delta/diff of the previous version.

For example, if there were two versions of the file, 31 days old and 29 days old, neither could be deleted because the latest one is still "alive" (and depends on the previous one).

Wait another day, however (so they're 32 days and 30 days old), then they can both be safely deleted.

Hope this helps.

John
]]> Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:52:44 +0000 http://www.buddybackup.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=530&title=understanding-when-backups-are-deleted