Backup your Mac or PC to DreamHost
Michael Lee from Addison Road has written a great tutorial about how you can use the vast amount of storage space on your DreamHost account to backup your Mac.
Part 1 of the tutorial shows how to create a new user with shell access, how to enable SSH access to the server without having to supply a password and how to use rsync from the terminal to create a backup of your home folder on the server.
Part 2 of the tutorial shows you how to create an AppleScript that runs rsync automatically and how to setup iCal to run the AppleScript on a daily basis.
Latest In Tech explains how to do the same on Windows with cwRsync (a package of Rsync and Cygwin).
April 4th, 2007 at 18:05
Your link for the Windows tutorial doesn’t seem to work–this one does, though:
http://www.latestintech.com/sync-windows-directories-with-linux/
April 4th, 2007 at 18:09
This thought had crossed my mind, except that I wouldn’t want most of my personal documents stored on someone else’s server. However, I do keep gigs of handy data on the server so I can share it between work and home.
April 4th, 2007 at 23:58
Kyle - Looks like they changed URL structure… Thanks for your help!
April 5th, 2007 at 23:56
Unfortunately, the directions on the linked page for Windows do not work. I’m sure there’s a way to do it, but those directions are leaving something out, as I keep getting errors when I follow the directions.
April 6th, 2007 at 00:40
After looking around to a few other pages (the DreamHost wiki) I got this to work…
However, I have run into a few problems. If you specify a directory name, it will backup the CONTENTS of that directory - not the directory itself - unless you specify that exact same directory name in the destination directory as well. This is a problem since if you are backing up a directory with SPACES in the name, it doesn’t handle it well. I was able to specify the directory using Windows 8+3 name (with a ~1 at the end, etc), but it gives errors when trying to create a destination directory of that name.
Perhaps it can be done - but one wonders why in this day and age there isn’t decent incremental remote backup software available that would eliminate this need to muck about with command lines in Windows.