Enterprise deployment

[GoogleCodeExporter]

How are you using Duplicati now?
I use to backup my files, and some important pcs in my network.

How would you like it to work?
For deployment i would like to be oneclick to deploy to all network pcs

Are there special considerations to this request?
yes

Additional information:
Nice, Jobs. Thanks

Original issue reported on code.google.com by madymu...@gmail.com on 8 May 2012 at 10:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What tool do you use normally to "oneclick deploy"?
What do you need besides MSI packages?

Original comment by kenneth@hexad.dk on 22 May 2012 at 8:11

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oneclick deploy is via GPO

Original comment by madymu...@gmail.com on 22 May 2012 at 9:09

[GoogleCodeExporter]

If you just want to install it via GPO, take the MSI package. 

If you want to run pre-defined jobs, unzip the zipped version, copy the files 
to the PCs with a batch script and then run backup jobs using the command line 
version of Duplicati through a batch file.

If there is anything else you need, tell us what it is.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 22 May 2012 at 6:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi there,

I'd like to get a few more GPO options too - totally a convenience request, 
since like you say it can be done, but it would be way more useful and powerful 
with either MST transforms to set up the default backup job and schedule, or an 
external config file (like a plain XML file or something) that could be copied 
over after installation. Tried copying the SQLite file, it didn't like that 
much. Could run batch files, but would really prefer not to.  Just my two 
cents, either way I'm sure I'll be deploying soon!

Original comment by dsummer...@gmail.com on 23 May 2012 at 11:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What is not working with copying the SQLite database?

Original comment by kenneth@hexad.dk on 24 May 2012 at 7:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am experimenting with that now, it looks like it will work better than I 
expected, but mostly it makes it hard to do customizations like basing the 
backup destination on the logged in username, or other dynamic changes to the 
configuration. It looks like I would have to decrypt, run a command line SQL 
alteration, and then re-encrypt to change a dynamic value (like username or OU 
or something like that). Transparency of settings in general is made easier by 
a plain text/XML config file, and MSTs make a huge difference when doing large 
scale deployment.

It is mostly a request about precision and transparency in deployment.

Original comment by dsummer...@gmail.com on 24 May 2012 at 2:55

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Could you describe how Duplicati is supposed to work in your environment? You 
mentioned that the backup target path should contain a username. Would you like 
to make encrypted backups? If so, what passwords will you use? How about the 
schedule? Will all backups run at the same time or would you like to run them 
nicely distributed over the working day?

I am asking these questions, so that we better understand what it means to set 
up a backup solution for 200 users in a domain. Would be great if you could 
provide us with more details what you would like to achieve and what needs to 
be considered.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 24 May 2012 at 3:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

For instance, if we could have MST transforms, or an installer
argument that would let us set the backup path per login (like using
the %username% variable and just use the logged in user's
credentials), and yeah, being able to stagger scheduling would be
awesome too. Maybe making Group Policies (which would just be registry
entries).  Sorry if that doesn't make a lot of sense!

Original comment by dsummer...@gmail.com on 20 Jul 2012 at 3:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

That makes sense. The only question I have is: Would you go for encrypted 
backups and if so, what password would you use?

I doubt that the users' login credentials can be used as passwords. First, the 
passord is probably not revealed and second, users can change their passwords 
which would be a problem as old backups cannot be read anymore. So, maybe a 
kind of master password which is the same for all users? Would that make sense? 

So far we have (as a plan):

* Define schedule
* Select source paths (using %username%)
* Define target using (using %username%)
* Define other settings like password for encryption

It might be a nice idea to store the configuration of a backup job in an XML 
file (one file per backup). Administrators can then create a backup job, take 
the XML file and adapt it to their needs (using placeholders where necessary). 
Then we hand over the XML file to the installer with a simple command line 
switch (or we detect if a config file is available or whatever), so that 
Duplicati is installed and the backup configuration is used as the first job.

What do you think?

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 20 Jul 2012 at 8:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 20 Jul 2012 at 9:00

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It should be possible to specify a new XML file for an update, so that existing 
jobs can be updated with new XML files when a Duplicati update is installed. 
That allows administrators to e.g. change their backup server address and amend 
all existing backup jobs accordingly.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 21 Jul 2012 at 10:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A few questions:

* Do you think that it is required to deploy different settings or backup jobs 
to different PCs or users? I mean e.g. that some backups go to 
\\backup01\%username% and some go to \\backup02\%username%. Is that something 
that is required and supported?

* Does GPO support to deploy single files to "C:\Program Files\Duplicati\" or 
"C:\users\%username%\..." and if so, can different files be deployed to 
different users (see example above)?

Background: We are just discussing a few ideas and one of them is to implement 
import/export of backup jobs. Duplicati could then import any jobs found in a 
specific directory during startup.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2012 at 7:20

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi there,

* I think that would be really useful, just in case. We are planning
to transition our storage infrastructure soon, and exactly this sort
of thing might crop up.

* It can, so that could work well.  The only problem is that to do a
user specific file copy would mean building a lot of GPOs, unless it
did have the variables built into the XML.

Nice, that could work pretty well, if we could have a empty backup job
with the settings stored in their backup directory whenever we create
the directory. But how would that function when they login to another
machine? Is there a way to check for that?

Original comment by dsummer...@gmail.com on 12 Aug 2012 at 6:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I guess we have found a solution for the tricky part of your use case. Kenneth 
has done a great job on issue #106 which allows users to run commands before or 
after backup jobs. It also allows users to modify settings opf the backup 
script from within the script. 

The plan is that this issue will give you an automatic import of a backup job 
(not implemented yet). Before the backup you run a script that queries a 
database or LDAP (or whatever you need) and based on the result it defines the 
(new) target URL for the backup. This means, the same script leads to different 
results for different users.

Have a look at issue #106 for more information. We are currently finishing an 
example script with instructions that we will upload. Please let us know if 
that would work for you.

Original comment by rst...@gmail.com on 15 Aug 2012 at 6:16