Zmanda Windows Client

From The Open Source Backup Wiki (Amanda, MySQL Backup, BackupPC)

Zmanda Windows Client Community Edition is an Amanda client for Windows platform that uses native Win32 API and uses Volume Shadow Services for backup.

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Features

Backup of open files
Backs up NTFS filesystem
Backup of extended attributes (ACLs)
Uses open format for backup images ()
Client backup compression using

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Downloads

Amanda client (ZWCInstaller-Community-26.zip) is available for download from page for 32bit platforms.

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Supported versions

Zmanda Windows Client 2.6.0 works with Amanda server packages (from Zmanda Downloads page) version 2.6.0 and later releases.
Amanda Windows client has been tested with (all running on x86 32bit platforms)
- Windows XP Pro (Server pack 2)
- Windows 2003 server
- Windows Vista
- Windows 2008 server

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Potential issues

Zmanda Windows Client only supports bsdtcp authentication. So, the dumptype for ZWC should have "auth bsdtcp".
Zmanda Windows Client does not support maxdumps parameter. It does not do backups in parallel. Configuring maxdumps parameter might ZWC service to crash.
Zmanda Windows Client uses port 10080 and 10081. No other service on the client should use these ports. ZWC service will fail to start if these ports are used.
The amanda user on the Amanda server should be "amandabackup".

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Installation

Zmanda Windows Client (ZWC) uses Microsoft installer.

Download ZWC zip archive from the downloads page.
Extract the zip archive.
Double-click on the setup.exe to install the Windows client.

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ZWC installer steps

Welcome Screen

License agreement

Select the installation folder for ZWC

Choose password for "amandabackup" user. All backups will be performed as this user. The user account is created on the local machine. If the software is being installed on domain controller, the user created in the domain.

If the ZWC is being installed on a Windows machine using non "US English" locale, please provide local equivalents.

Amanda server information. Please provide hostname of the server that will back up this windows machine.

Installation notes: Please read before continuing.

Rest of the installation steps are self-explanatory.

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Adding your new Windows client to the Amanda server

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Adding dumptype definitions on the Amanda server for Windows clients

Add dumptype definitions to the Amanda server's configuration file amanda.conf. If you want to share the definitions across all Amanda configurations, please add it to /etc/amanda/template.d/dumptypes file.

Dumptype definition for normal backup

define dumptype zwc-normal {
   global
   auth "bsdtcp"
   program "DUMP"
}

Dumptype definition for compressed backup

define dumptype zwc-compress {
   global
   auth "bsdtcp"
   compress client fast
   program "DUMP"
}

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Tell the Amanda server what to back up on the Windows client

On the Amanda server, run amaddclient to add Windows client filesystems to be backed up

$ amaddclient --config  --client  \
  --diskdev  --dumptype

Example:

$ amaddclient --config DailySet1 --client windowsdesktop.company.com \
  --diskdev \"C:/Documents\ and\ Settings/Sunil/My\ Documents\"  --dumptype zwc-compress

DailySet1 - the Amanda configuration name
\ - back slash escapes special characters such as white space in file names
zwc-compress - selects a dumptype that will compress backups of the filesystem

Note: Ignore the WARNING messages from "amaddclient" about failing to copy files to the Windows Client.

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Run amcheck on the Amanda server

Fix all configuration problems found by the command. Run amcheck as the amandabackup user on the Amanda server.

For example:

$ amcheck -c DailySet1

If there are no amcheck errors, you are ready to do backup of Windows client. In case of amcheck errors, take a look at section.

Note: Zmanda Windows Client only supports "bsdtcp" authentication (auth bsdtcp in 
dumptype configuration) protocol.

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Restoring files to the Windows client

To restore files to the Windows client, the backup image will have to be recovered on the Amanda server and copied to the Windows client. Windows machine to which files being restored to, does not require Amanda software.

On the Amanda server, use amadmin and amfetchdump to extract the backup image on the Amanda server. You will have to use amfetchdump repeatedly to extract images of multiple backup levels. It has to be performed as "amandabackup" user.