I am not sure if I am doing this correctly. After every reboot, the only files that I can restore are from the latest tarball I created. Otherwise, everything I have updated since the latest tarball do not show up on a reboot. Does this mean I will need to create a new tarball after every backup? Is there a different way to do this?

 

If this is the case, can anyone tell me or show me how I can set up a script to create a tarball every x minutes? Or maybe a new tarball every night?

 

Crashplan seems to be great if I can actaully get it to backup files even if my unraid server restarts without having to do manual tars every night.

 

Any help would be really appreciated.

 

The only time a re-tar is needed is when the crashplan application is actually updated.  There is something wrong with your install, be sure to check the setting via the GUI once you get it installed.

Thank you for responding to my question! =)

 

Do you know exactly what setting would cause crashplan to do this in the GUI? I have tried looking through it but I could not figure out exactly which setting it was.

 

Thanks for your help!

Thank you for responding to my question! =)

 

Do you know exactly what setting would cause crashplan to do this in the GUI? I have tried looking through it but I could not figure out exactly which setting it was.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

If I remember reading a couple pages back there is an issue with the new install that does not respect the backup location you put in via the command line.  If I were you I would check the backup location and go from there.  If you make any changes via the GUI you will need to re-tar everything.

Thanks so much!

 

That was exactly it. I assumed that it was being saved to the correct place becuase I input it that way. If someone could update the wiki with this information, it would be very useful!

 

Thanks again

Thanks so much!

 

That was exactly it. I assumed that it was being saved to the correct place becuase I input it that way. If someone could update the wiki with this information, it would be very useful!

 

Thanks again

Done and done.

Well after reading all 26 pages on this thread, I followed the directions and installed Crashplan. Went pretty smoothly and I now have it working. For some reason, enabling SSH to reinstall on reboot through unMenu us not working. I am on 5b6. Its fine i just added the line to my go script.

 

I do have a few maintenance questions.

 

1) Right now, I edited the unmenu powerdown script to both stop CP and then do a TAR before running the shutdown. I figured the tar, while unnecessary, makes it easier for me should crashplan ever update. But is there a downside to doing this?

 

2) While i modded the unmenu powerdown script, i imagine that if i use the reboot or powerdown button un the unMenu web GUI, these mods will not apply? Is there a way to add them there as well?

 

3) Similar to 2, my method for shutting down my server (which i do very very infrequently) is pushing the powerbutton. I have weebotechs clean powerdown package installed which enables me to do a clean power down via the power button. Anyone know how i might go about adding the CP shutdown to this script as well so i am covered from all possible angles as to how i might shut down the server?

 

Real big thanks to Pro and Boof. While I found the wiki mostly updated, it eventually would be good for someone to update it for windows and mac installs, including little things like the backup location having to be reset despite the initial install. Its the little things i gathered from reading this thread which made the install so painless.

 

And one last comment. It occurs to me that if you back up to an unraid box for one redundancy and to the online service as well (Which i do), you probably could just have the unraid backup the backups to the online service and only run the one way backup to the unraid from your computer. but for now, i have them going independently. 

 

And one last comment. It occurs to me that if you back up to an unraid box for one redundancy and to the online service as well (Which i do), you probably could just have the unraid backup the backups to the online service and only run the one way backup to the unraid from your computer. but for now, i have them going independently. 

 

You could, but you wouldn't be backing up the files in their readable structure. CP stores all its data in it's own blob format, so if you target the unraid instance as a destination, your data is stored in that format. You could probably then select those archives as backup to CP Central, but they will be large abstract sets of files, probably constantly changing and it would not make sense to restore them via the web at that point.

 

You could use other means to back up to the unraid, however, and have it run those folders to CP Central. I run rsync as an automated task for specific folders on my machines I want backups of, for example.

1) Right now, I edited the unmenu powerdown script to both stop CP and then do a TAR before running the shutdown. I figured the tar, while unnecessary, makes it easier for me should crashplan ever update. But is there a downside to doing this?

No real downside, besides you will have to prune the CrashPlan tar files every so often.  They are kind of large and depending on how often you reboot, there could be a number of them in there.  The only other thing I would suggest is that you name the old tar files in a different manner than I did for the buttons on the User Scripts page of unMenu.  I think my scirpts create a crashplan.tar.old file then re-tars the install.  I would suggest renaming the old crashplan file to something like crashplan.tar.4-28-2009 (<-i.e. this is the date).

 

2) While i modded the unmenu powerdown script, i imagine that if i use the reboot or powerdown button un the unMenu web GUI, these mods will not apply? Is there a way to add them there as well?

I am not sure if those reboot and powerdown buttons interact with the powerdown script or not.  That would be something to look through the code at, or ask Joe L.

 

3) Similar to 2, my method for shutting down my server (which i do very very infrequently) is pushing the powerbutton. I have weebotechs clean powerdown package installed which enables me to do a clean power down via the power button. Anyone know how i might go about adding the CP shutdown to this script as well so i am covered from all possible angles as to how i might shut down the server?

You can edit that file to add those lines as you see fit.

 

Real big thanks to Pro and Boof. While I found the wiki mostly updated, it eventually would be good for someone to update it for windows and mac installs, including little things like the backup location having to be reset despite the initial install. Its the little things i gathered from reading this thread which made the install so painless.

I updated the wiki yesterday with the tidbit about the install location not being respected on the command line.

 

And one last comment. It occurs to me that if you back up to an unraid box for one redundancy and to the online service as well (Which i do), you probably could just have the unraid backup the backups to the online service and only run the one way backup to the unraid from your computer. but for now, i have them going independently. 

I have my computers backup to the server, backup to the cloud, and then the server also backs up to the cloud.  Better safe than sorry.

Thanks for the response.

 

I actually am not using your tar script but instead just added the necessary code into my Go script so i imagine the crashplan.tar file is just being overwritten. Again, since i rarely ever reboot, didnt see a problem with this although it may makes sense to create a backup tar today (golden tar) and then make sure to do so say every month manually. But I imagine overwriting the tar otherwise is fine.

 

On the powerdown via the power button, i am not sure where i would edit that script. I will ask in another thread.

 

Thank again for all the help.

I am not good with programming and this process looks overwhelming for me.

 

Do I need to install crashplan to my unraid server if I only want to backup the server to crashplan online. Is there any workaround process such as installing crashplan to a windows machine and tell crashplan to backup my unraid (network drive).

 

If I do need to install crashplan to the unraid server, how do I control it? Let says, I want to backup my disk1 and disk2 only not my disk3?

 

Currenly I am using unraid 4.7 with unmenu. Will crashplan work with them?

 

Regards,

BW

Do I need to install crashplan to my unraid server if I only want to backup the server to crashplan online. Is there any workaround process such as installing crashplan to a windows machine and tell crashplan to backup my unraid (network drive).

I am not sure if you can install Crashplan on Windows and tell it to backup network/mapped drives or not.

 

If I do need to install crashplan to the unraid server, how do I control it?

The directions given in this thread will tell you how to do that.

 

Let says, I want to backup my disk1 and disk2 only not my disk3?

That can all be configured and set up.

 

Currenly I am using unraid 4.7 with unmenu. Will crashplan work with them?

Should work just fine.

Do I need to install crashplan to my unraid server if I only want to backup the server to crashplan online. Is there any workaround process such as installing crashplan to a windows machine and tell crashplan to backup my unraid (network drive).

I am not sure if you can install Crashplan on Windows and tell it to backup network/mapped drives or not.

 

 

I spent several hours attempting just this and I was unsuccessful.  I ended up following the CrashPlan install wiki and I have now uploaded about 20GB since yesterday afternoon from my unRAID box. I wonder just how much space they are going to let me get away with for $12/month!

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

Once you get it up and running, you run Crashplan on a remote box as well (I use Windows). This can be used to back up to the Crashplan on UnRaid. But when you want to change anything on the Crashplan on UnRaid, you load up the ssh tunnel (with the port forwarded tunnel - all in the wiki), then you simply change (uncomment out) the service port line in the ui.properties file on your other (ie Windows) box. Then when you load Crashplan on that box, it connects to the engine on UnRaid and controls it through the local program. Exit the program, put the "#" back at the front of the service port line and you're back to your local Crashplan engine.

 

Hope that helps. 

 

I am not good with programming and this process looks overwhelming for me.

 

Do I need to install crashplan to my unraid server if I only want to backup the server to crashplan online. Is there any workaround process such as installing crashplan to a windows machine and tell crashplan to backup my unraid (network drive).

 

If I do need to install crashplan to the unraid server, how do I control it? Let says, I want to backup my disk1 and disk2 only not my disk3?

 

Currenly I am using unraid 4.7 with unmenu. Will crashplan work with them?

 

Regards,

BW

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

Once you get it up and running, you run Crashplan on a remote box as well (I use Windows). This can be used to back up to the Crashplan on UnRaid. But when you want to change anything on the Crashplan on UnRaid, you load up the ssh tunnel (with the port forwarded tunnel - all in the wiki), then you simply change (uncomment out) the service port line in the ui.properties file on your other (ie Windows) box. Then when you load Crashplan on that box, it connects to the engine on UnRaid and controls it through the local program. Exit the program, put the "#" back at the front of the service port line and you're back to your local Crashplan engine.

 

Hope that helps. 

 

 

FWIW - I take a copy of my crashplan directory in windows and copy it somewhere else, say desktop and modify that ui.properities file so it can connect to unraid.  Then I just run that crashplan executable (after a ssh tunnel is created).  This way I don't always have to mess with commenting/uncommenting the properties file.  The only issue is you have to recopy each time crashplan is updated with a new version.

 

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

Once you get it up and running, you run Crashplan on a remote box as well (I use Windows). This can be used to back up to the Crashplan on UnRaid. But when you want to change anything on the Crashplan on UnRaid, you load up the ssh tunnel (with the port forwarded tunnel - all in the wiki), then you simply change (uncomment out) the service port line in the ui.properties file on your other (ie Windows) box. Then when you load Crashplan on that box, it connects to the engine on UnRaid and controls it through the local program. Exit the program, put the "#" back at the front of the service port line and you're back to your local Crashplan engine.

 

Hope that helps. 

 

 

FWIW - I take a copy of my crashplan directory in windows and copy it somewhere else, say desktop and modify that ui.properities file so it can connect to unraid.  Then I just run that crashplan executable (after a ssh tunnel is created).  This way I don't always have to mess with commenting/uncommenting the properties file.  The only issue is you have to recopy each time crashplan is updated with a new version.

 

 

I have an automator script on my Mac that does essentially the same thing.  It adds or removes the line, opens terminal, starts the ssh tunnel, then launches the crashplan GUI.  A batch file could probably be created to do something very similar so the copying back and forth is not needed.

Good ideas. I thought about the batch file to swap out copies of the local and remote access ui.properties files, just haven't gotten around to it. Only takes like 20 seconds maybe to edit it.

 

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

I am following the wiki now. I downloaded and put the packages in "extra" directory. Now I have to launch ssh. Could you tell me how to do that.

 

Thanks

BW

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

I am following the wiki now. I downloaded and put the packages in "extra" directory. Now I have to launch ssh. Could you tell me how to do that.

 

Thanks

BW

 

ssh is a protocol similar to telnet, but secure. You'll need a program (putty is the standard for windows), which usually will run either telnet or ssh. You need to get ssh installed via unMenu (if you are running that) so you can connect securely as well as create the tunnels per the wiki

 

do you have the prerequisites?

- cpio installed on unraid

- sshd and openssl installed

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

I am following the wiki now. I downloaded and put the packages in "extra" directory. Now I have to launch ssh. Could you tell me how to do that.

 

Thanks

BW

 

ssh is a protocol similar to telnet, but secure. You'll need a program (putty is the standard for windows), which usually will run either telnet or ssh. You need to get ssh installed via unMenu (if you are running that) so you can connect securely as well as create the tunnels per the wiki

 

do you have the prerequisites?

- cpio installed on unraid

- sshd and openssl installed

 

I installed cpio, sshd, openssl in unmenu.

I still do not know how to run putty. I download and installed it but what should I do on setup:

- host name?

- port?

- connection type? I assume ssh

 

Thanks!

BW

The wiki lays it out quite well. If you can ssh into the box, you can do it.

 

I am following the wiki now. I downloaded and put the packages in "extra" directory. Now I have to launch ssh. Could you tell me how to do that.

 

Thanks

BW

 

sent you a PM to reduce clutter in the thread

 

ssh is a protocol similar to telnet, but secure. You'll need a program (putty is the standard for windows), which usually will run either telnet or ssh. You need to get ssh installed via unMenu (if you are running that) so you can connect securely as well as create the tunnels per the wiki

 

do you have the prerequisites?

- cpio installed on unraid

- sshd and openssl installed

 

I installed cpio, sshd, openssl in unmenu.

I still do not know how to run putty. I download and installed it but what should I do on setup:

- host name?

- port?

- connection type? I assume ssh

 

Thanks!

BW

 

Sent you a PM to reduce clutter in the thread

I read the wiki, and poked through the last few pages of the thread, so I hope I'm not repeating old info here...

 

When I ran the installer it respected the destination path I put in. I installed CrashPlan to /mnt/disk1/custom/crashplan, and told it to put the bin files in /mnt/disk1/custom/crashplan/bin.

 

I moved /var/lib/crashplan (with the .identity file) to /mnt/disk1/custom/crashplan/identity and linked it back to /var/lib/crashplan.

 

The lines I added to the go script are:

# Start Crashplan
ln -s /mnt/disk1/custom/crashplan/identity /var/lib/crashplan
/mnt/disk1/custom/crashplan/bin/CrashPlanEngine start

 

It seems to retain all the configuration between reboots, and I can make a change in the GUI (using an SSH tunnel) and have it be persistent without dealing with tarring/untarring directories.

 

Is there a downside to this approach that I'm missing? I'm running the free version unRAID 4.7 and whatever version of Crashplan is current.

Keep an eye on it when Crashplan updates itself - you might find it stops and doesn't auto restart (depends if you're doing anything with the rc scripts).

 

Also your config probably means your disk1 will never (/rarely) spin down (and possibly parity as well given the logging crashplan does). This may not bother you and the other, disk based, option would be to put it on your cache drive - if you have one.

 

Double check the path you entered *as the backup destination*, not as where to actually install crashplan, has been respected. That seems to be the main issue with newer builds of crashplan.

 

Also be aware if you have given crashplan a backup destination that either isn't on a user share or is on a user share with an inappropriate split level config then you will only be able to backup (locally) to the size of your single disk.

 

Other than that - sounds like you've done pretty well, if you're not seeing problems then job done..!

I also much prefer just installing to a persistent disk and calling it from there. Surprised more people don't make this choice. I made a pkg of the .identity file and rc.d crashplan files, just so that those still exist in the default place, as they don't change — or if they did change, it would be very rare.

 

Frankly, I find the idea of tarring/untarring the crashplan installation and state files to RAM more work than is necessary. I use a small laptop drive that's automounted outside of my array for software and state data that I don't want to deal with staging and managing on every reboot. In my mind, keeping one disk spun up constantly to keep CP running is acceptable, considering it is likely going to be spinning up other drives to send and receive backups anyway.

 

But to each his own..

I also much prefer just installing to a persistent disk and calling it from there. Surprised more people don't make this choice. I made a pkg of the .identity file and rc.d crashplan files, just so that those still exist in the default place, as they don't change — or if they did change, it would be very rare.

 

Frankly, I find the idea of tarring/untarring the crashplan installation and state files to RAM more work than is necessary. I use a small laptop drive that's automounted outside of my array for software and state data that I don't want to deal with staging and managing on every reboot. In my mind, keeping one disk spun up constantly to keep CP running is acceptable, considering it is likely going to be spinning up other drives to send and receive backups anyway.

 

But to each his own..

 

Indeed it is all personal preference.  the Tar/untar thing is simple and easy enough to do, plus it does not happen very often.  Once I see an update come out I make sure it is installed on the server and use the buttons on the User Scripts section of unMenu to tar the new files.

Keep an eye on it when Crashplan updates itself - you might find it stops and doesn't auto restart (depends if you're doing anything with the rc scripts).

I hadn't considered the rc scripts... Since I've rebooted multiple times I imagine they're long gone by now. I'll reinstall to get a copy of them. I'd be inclined to give them a space in the directory structure I created and link them across to where CrashPlan expects to find them. Soft links strike me as a more elegant solution than moving files around. Is there a reason not to do it that way?

 

Also your config probably means your disk1 will never (/rarely) spin down (and possibly parity as well given the logging crashplan does). This may not bother you and the other, disk based, option would be to put it on your cache drive - if you have one.

Even before I installed crashplan, disk1 and my parity disk never spun down because of SAB and Sickbeard.  

 

I'm planning to drop another disk in to be a repository for this sort of thing shortly. I'm holding off on purchasing the paid version of unRAID for now, so I'll probably roll my own solution for the time being.

 

Double check the path you entered *as the backup destination*, not as where to actually install crashplan, has been respected. That seems to be the main issue with newer builds of crashplan.

 

Also be aware if you have given crashplan a backup destination that either isn't on a user share or is on a user share with an inappropriate split level config then you will only be able to backup (locally) to the size of your single disk.

I should have mentioned that I did change the backup destination to one of my user shares when I logged in with the GUI the first time.