For my company Qustodium Internet Security, I am in the process of
developing a VM appliance that will enable small (Windows-centric) networks
to enjoy the benefits of BackupPC. 

Basically, the appliance runs BackupPC on top of a special Ubuntu version
and will be very simple to configure. The draft announcement is available
on the project web page [0].

Clearly QBA is covered by the GPL, based on its components such as Ubuntu
JeOS, SetACL and BackupPC. Proprietary tools such as vshadow.exe and
dosdev.exe (see below) are not necessary for QBA to work, but the user has
the choice to obtain those tools separately from Microsoft and enhance
QBA’s functionality significantly.

In addition to the above ease-of-use, QBA addresses some limitations stated
in the BackupPC FAQ: 

* "Non-Unix file attributes not backed up"
QBA uses SetACL [1] to backup and restore Windows NTFS access control lists
for every file and directory. The ACLs are stored for every directory
before the backup starts in a special file called BUGBUG, and upon restore
that data is used to recreate the ACLs for the restored files only. In
addition, QBA uses attrib.exe (part of every Windows installation) to
backup and restore other file attributes such as System, Hidden, Archive or
Read-Only.

* "Locked files are not backed up"
QBA can make use of the Volume Shadow Copy Service that was introduced with
Windows XP to copy even open files such as Outlook .PSTs mail stores. In
order for this to work, the user has to provide his own copies of
vshadow.exe (part of the Volume Shadow Copy Service SDK) and dosdev.exe
(part of Microsoft Product Support's Reporting Tools), both of which are
free downloads. Once these files have been obtained by the user and
integrated via the available automated GUI process, QBA will use them
without further configuration to copy locked files. At the moment, there is
no GUI and the files have to be simply dropped into the correct folder of
the virtual “configuration” HD.

* "Don't expect to reconstruct a complete WinXX drive"
Since QBA addresses both the ACL and locked files issue, it remains to be
confirmed whether this is sufficient to reconstruct a complete Windows
drive. We anticipate that at least master boot record, partition table,
boot sector and boot loader need more investigation, but could potentially
be solved via the dd tool, as outlined here [2].

Perhaps we could pool our interest in backing up ACLs and the registry (and
potentially the MBR) for a full Windows Disaster Recovery option in
BackupPC?

Best regards,

                Achim

[0] <http://www.cuba-project.org/>
[1] <http://setacl.sourceforge.net/>
[2]
<http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/backing_up_your_master_boot_record>

-- 
Achim J. Latz, Qustodium Internet Security
achim.latz AT qustodium DOT net · http://www.qustodium.net
Data Encryption · Backup Automatisation · E-Mail Protection

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