Support friend to friend backup

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Crashplan.com has a very nice thing to provide backup space for friends. But 
this would not only be this use case alone. It would also make it easier for 
other situations to provide an abstraction layer between the backup destination 
and the client.

What would be perfect: somehow detect whether a specific computer/user who 
shared backup space is online (probably via jabber status? avahi for local 
networks...), detect whether the destination is reachable via a local network 
or via the internet and take the shortest path to do the backup.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by maximili...@gmail.com on 30 Dec 2011 at 2:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thank you. We have already discussed this idea so that friends can store their 
backups mutually. This indeed requires quite some work to make it easy to use 
and reliable. Some of the features that are required: Friend management, 
redundant backups (in case someone is not online but you need a backup), hole 
punching to get through routers and firewalls without configuration, and a lot 
of network voodoo as backup targets might become unavailable at any time or run 
out of space.

I think that this would be a great feature as many people have more harddisk 
space than they require and this can be used for backups. Let's see if others 
like this idea too (and the issue gets a lot of stars). If so, it might show up 
on Duplicati's roadmap some day.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 30 Dec 2011 at 1:49

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Type-Defect

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A feature that I would really like is the ability to back up to a removable 
drive initially located on one's own network/machine and subsequently relocated 
to a friend's. This would save the burden of the initial upload over the 
network (very important on slow connections - such as mine). I believe 
CrashPlan has this feature.

Original comment by leil...@gmail.com on 25 May 2012 at 8:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This is possible with Duplicati as long as you use the available backends:

1) Make a file-based backup to your USB drive
2) Copy the files to another computer
3) Make this folder available via FTP, SSH, WebDAV
4) Change the backend from file-based to FTP, SSH, WebDAV

Duplicati will find the existing backup files and update those with incremental 
updates.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 25 May 2012 at 9:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I would love this capability also. Currently I'm using AeroFS to do this (sync 
contents of external drive at home to external drive at work). Since both 
drives are not always online (one attached to wife's laptop, one attached to 
mine) it is really convenient to have the s/w detect which is online. AeroFS 
does an ok job in that I don't have to set up ssh or port forwarding etc but it 
doesn't handle things very gracefully if the external drive is not plugged in. 
Also it's a Java client and is very memory hungry so I don't leave it running. 
Also it is very restrictive in what data can be backed up (you only have one 
library location).

Original comment by jonnojoh...@gmail.com on 25 May 2012 at 4:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Maybe for the initial implementation simplify the scope of this feature? 
Support only 1-to-1 relationship and have users manually forward proper router 
ports?

Original comment by mxx...@gmail.com on 11 Sep 2012 at 4:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Agree with mxxcon and others - simplify the network problem by relying on 
properly configured network, VPN, etc.

The lack of this feature is the one reason I cannot use duplicati as my full 
solution yet.

Original comment by stev...@google.com on 29 May 2013 at 11:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Mindless question/comment:

Filebased backup + bittorrent sync could a possible workaround to this, am I 
right?

Original comment by kluedicke on 26 Sep 2013 at 6:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, this could work but you still have source data + backup stored on your 
device. A clean implementation of this feature would only have source data 
locally and a backup remotely.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 26 Sep 2013 at 8:03