Actually this coincides with an idea I had for using BackupPC for use as a backup service. It would have to operate differently to the standard configuration, though. The system I envisioned was as follows:
rather than the BackupPC Server polling clients, the clients would be responsible for initiating the connection to the BackupPC server.
The BackupPC server would need to run Rsyncd in order to listen for connections and expose the backup store location to the client, based on the authentication and other defined criteria (alloted space, compression, encryption, authorization)
the clients would run rsync (or some other process) which will send the data across to the BackupPC server, over SSH (for example), which would utilize encryption for the SSH path.
Optionally, the data can (possibly) be encrypted BY THE CLIENT, and sent across as raw bits to be stored on the Rsync store. This would mean that, as was suggested by John's boss, the server does not have access to the unencrypted data, as the client could choose their own password which the server/service provider would not have. This would mean, though that data recovery from failed disks would be a royal pain
Issues:
Client access to the data - the web interface would become much more complex, as it would now need to be accessed over a WAN or Internet in order to check or manipulate clients backups and restores.
Client would now need to keep "backup state" information
WAN link becomes issue - Internet connection speeds will determine backup duration.
Backing up of clients may be limited to the use of Rsync and SSH.
Other Considerations:
Client can optionally have a "staging server" which offers a web interface for local "consumption, interacts directly with the backup server (as a sort of gateway), keeps backup state and status, and stores commonly accessed info (backup details, file lists, etc), and would be responsible for requesting files for restore from the backup server. This could aid with system security, as the Backup Service will have less interfaces to expose to the public.
Secure encrypted communications can then happen between staging server and BackupPC server(s), with on-disk encryption, if needed, being done by the staging server before shipping files over.
This means that BackupPC would need to be changed from a "pull" backup system (by the server), to "push" backups (by the clients). It would also change the way the web interface operated (if clients now access from the server), or the structure and relationship between systems if the option of a gateway or staging server is utilized.
While I am not a programmer, and would not be able to even begin to provide any assistance in this, I think such an option would not just put BackupPC over the top (as it is already there), but would place it in a completely new class of software (BaaS - Backups as a Service), and open up a whole new realm of options for OSS fans.
Any criticisms (or dissecting, correcting, whatever) of the above is welcomed. Does anyone think this may be feasible?
ok That answers my question. The issue is that we are looking at
backing up clients machines and my boss wanted to be able to tell
them that even we can not see their files. I did not think it was
possible but thought it was worth asking.
John
On 5/16/2012 7:05 PM, Arnold Krille wrote:
On 16.05.2012 22:52, John Hutchinson wrote:
Is there any way to setup backuppc so that the pc and the pool directory
are encrypted so they can only be accessed by the web interface with a
valid user?
If you mean encryption: No, not really. You can encrypt the disk where
backuppc stores the data. But anything you do will be un-encrypted as
long as backuppc (and the webinterface via apache) is running.
If you mean authentication/authorization, yes thats one of the things
apache can do. And thats really what "access the web-interface with a
valid user" means. Note the the definition of a "valid user" is only
limited by what apache supports for this (which is quite a lot and
includes kerberos and ldap and such things). See the
apache-documentation for that.
Have fun,
Arnold
PS: Is there a reason you didn't start your own thread? - Note that just
hitting "reply" and editing the subject does _not_ create a new thread,
your mail still contains headers in-reply-to: and references: and thus
is still belonging to a different thread...
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