The great home network

Again, some changes

[Provider router]

• wi-fi
• eth1 - free
• eth0 - blue cable downlink to switch BR604
•  [Switch B4R 604]
• Downlink towards permanently connected Desktop computer
• Daisy Chain to Alcatel Speedtouch 510v4
• Setup as Bridged, will be used as a dumb hub/switch
• Disabled DHCP
• Disabled DNS
• Downlinks towards 3 unused RJ45 cables in two bedrooms and TV room
• Daisy Chain to Wifi AP Dlink towards the back of the house
• DHCP disabled
• DNS Disabled? 
• Wifi enabled WPA2
• Downlink to backup server in same room
• Downlink to Wifi AP Sitecom towards the garden
• Sitecom Wifi AP
• Fixed IP 192.168.3.1
• DHCP enabled, range restricted 3.100...3.200
•  No further RJ45 downlinks

Equipment removed: Dlink DI614+ due to no support for WPA2 and couldn't get it to work anymore.  Kept the power adapter and Wifi antenna.

Switching backuppc from SMB to rsyncd on Windows

SMB performance was poor so I figured I'd try the rsyncd method like I do on linux clients.  That turned out to be a little bit hairy so here are some notes;

• This is based on https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/backuppc#sauvegarder_des_postes_windows_via_rsyncd
• Installed cygwin-rsyncd from Sourceforge
• Tweaked rsyncd.conf to allow access to the cDrive module from my backup host only and for the backuppc user only.  Also calling this module "Users" and pointing it to C:\Users
• Added backuppc to rsyncd.secrets
• Took some time to find out how to stop/start the rsyncserver service (cmd must be started as administrator for this to work)
• Open port 873 with a new rule in Windows Firewall (or any other FW software running).
• Tweaked my client configuration in backuppc using the GUI (use rsync, point to the correct module, etc...)
• Now a full backup is running.  If that works I know I'll probably still need to tweak the include/exclude stuff

New backuppc host - using SMB

• Created new local Windows user for backuppc (admin, set a password)
• Add the new host to backuppc server using the web GUI
• Share c:\users on Windows level.  Authorize only backuppc (full control)
• Test with smbclient from the backup server: 
• /usr/bin/smbclient \\\\run12\\Users -Ubackuppc  -E -d 1 -c tarmode\ full -Tc -
• Changed some global XFER options (name of SMB share=Users)
• Changed permissions on Windows level to give Administrators "full control" on the share.  That seems to cure the NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED errors on all kinds of directories.

New laptop

Today I bought a new (used) laptop -- Dell Latitude E6220 with 6GB RAM, 500GB HD, Windows 7 Pro 64bits, Core i-5 2520M @ 2.50 GHz and I can't see an SSD in there.
Installed Windows Security Essentials, Windows Live ID.
The plan is to split the disk and install Xubuntu in dualboot anytime soon.

The laptop itself is pretty nice, small 12" screen WXGA resolution, the battery humps on the back but should hopefully support the faster-than-average-for-its-era CPU.  The graphics are basic Intel HD 3000 or something.  Ports for HDMI, USB (2.0 only), eSATA, VGA, SD, eID and ExpressCard.  So far so good.  No SCSI, RS-232 or parallel port though? That's how I know it's recent enough for me :-)

Next step: Configure Backuppc for this.

New backup host pc-lili

1. Add the new host using the web GUI
2. On the new host:
1. sudo apt-get install openssh-server
3. On base (backuppc server) :
1. sudo apt-get update
2. sudo apt-get upgrad
3. sudo -iu backuppc
4. cd /etc/backupp
5. sudo cp -p existinghost.pl newhost.pl
6. ssh-copy-id luc@newhost
7. ssh luc@newhost
8. (confirm key ID)
9. login should proceed without a password request
4. On the new host
1. sudo -i
2. cat ~luc/.ssh/authorized_keys >> ~root/.ssh/authorized_keys
3. chmod 750 ~root/.ssh/authorized_keys
5. On the backuppc server:
1. sudo -u backuppc ssh -l root newhost
2. (confirm key ID)
3. login should proceed without a password request
6. Login to the web GUI and check the new host config (select rsync as the XFER method for example)
7. Start full backup using the web GUI

Bummer - libparm-gnome-keyring was missing

Finally found out that lubuntu doesn't install the required libpam-gnome-keyring package in order for Darktable (and others) to remember passwords for the online export services like Picasa/Google Flickr etc...
What a relief now...

Ooops involving backuppc

Tonight I wanted to remove postfix as I only need msmtp for sending email.  However this also accidentally removed the dependent package backuppc, including all configuration :-| as I had used "apt-get purge".

So I reinstalled backuppc (it also reinstalled postfix) and after setting up the htpasswd file then the localhost.pl file in /etc/backuppc (including the change to run tar under sudo) I was able to restore the previous /etc/backuppc/[hosts,*.pl] using backuppc itself.

I had to use "service backuppc restart" after rebooting kid2 as a test client before an incremental backup started OK.  Otherwise this looks fine.  No logs or backups seem to have been lost in the adventure.  This program is indeed more robust and foolproof than what I had thought.

I then restarted a full backup on f****-pc (I had previously given control to the backuppc user on this host to the user directory that needed backup).

If apache were also purged, the following is required on a blank Ubuntu/Apache2 install:
/etc/apache2/envvars:  run as backuppc as this is a dedicated apache2
/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:    #ServerName www.example.com
/etc/apache2/mods-enabled$ sudo ln -s ../mods-available/cgi.load