[Box Backup-dev] Self-introduction

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Stewart,

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009, Stewart Adam wrote:

>>> * Support for backups to local folders (and therefore any mounted
>>>   drives) & optical media
>>
>>  Has been discussed many times, not really hard to implement, but you
>>  can also just run bbstored on the same machine as bbackupd.
>
> This is what I was hoping could be worked around... For example, by 
> avoiding the server altogether and adding support for local destinations 
> into the client the average user will be able to backup data to a USB 
> key or another folder much easier than setting up a server, client 
> account and managing certificates just to get some files copied.

I agree that it would be easier. In theory the client communicates with 
the server by calling methods on the BackupProtocolClient class 
(lib/backupclient/autogen_BackupProtocolClient.cpp) which communicates 
over the network.

I think you could modify the Protocol auto-generate script 
(lib/server/makeprotocol.pl.in) so that it generates a new client class, 
which for each method instantiates the appropriate server message class, 
stores the right information in its rProtocol object for it to read, 
executes it, and reads the response out; and then arrange a simple switch 
to create an instance of this new BackupProtocolClient class instead of 
the usual one, depending on some client configuration value, that would 
achieve what you want to do.

>>> * Support for multiple users on a single machine (still need to
>>>   investigate the possibility of running multiple non-root daemons)
>>
>>  Already works. They just need different ports, configuration files and
>>  data directories.
>
> I'm not sure how large a change this would be, but it would be good to 
> have it working on the same port. A typical user case would be I want to 
> backup data on my 3 machines to the same server using my account, or say 
> my bother, sister and I all have different accounts on the server but 
> use the same computer (so 3 daemons need to share 1 port).

If you have the same account then it would make sense to use different 
locations in the same configuration file. If they use different accounts 
then they could better be written using separate configuration files. They 
should all be able to talk to the same server daemon on the same port, so 
different ports shouldn't be necessary, sorry for the false information.

>>> * Support for multiple backup configurations per user (data can be
>>>   grouped and can have different settings, or be uploaded to
>>>   different box backup servers)
>>
>>  You can have as many locations and/or configuration files per user as
>>  you want.
>
> If I understand correctly, a daemon needs to be started for each 
> configuration file?

Yes, that's correct, is that a big problem? (Given that these are 
different users in each case, so the daemon should probably be run as the 
user who controls it in any case).

> Excellent! I'm looking forward to helping work on box backup. In order 
> to get myself familiar with the code are there any small tasks I can 
> start by working on?

Have you had a look at our Trac bug tracker, accessible via the Wiki? 
There are plenty of tasks there which need doing, some smaller than 
others.

Cheers, Chris.
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