Backup¶

Introduction¶

This page describes how to connect and backup your ScienceCluster data to a NAS device, for example the UZH NAS service. (NAS stands for Network Attached Storage.)

You can use smbclient to connect to a NAS and then explore the file system and download or upload files to ScienceCluster file system.

Additionally, you can use Rclone to copy and sync to a NAS, which can act as a backup or mirror of your ScienceCluster files.

Connect with smbclient¶

Establish a connection¶

To connect to a UZH NAS, input the following command:

smbclient --max-protocol SMB3 -W UZH -U username //nasaddress

and replace username with your UZH shortname and nasaddress with the address to your NAS. If the command is correct and the NAS is working properly, you will be prompted to enter your password.

NAS addresses are often shared with a shared folder path. For example, smb://examplenas.uzh.ch/subfolder$. In this case, you would input the following into the smbclient command:

smbclient --max-protocol SMB3 -W UZH -U username //nasaddress/subfolder$

Once you have successfully connected to the NAS, you will see the following prompt in your terminal:

smb: \>

Type exit to leave the prompt.

Commands¶

To send a single large file to a NAS, use a command like this:

smbclient --max-protocol SMB3 -W UZH -U username //nasaddress/backups -c "put backup.tar.gz"

In addition to put, other commands include ls, cd and get. For a full list of commands, run man smbclient and look under the "Operations" section.

Backup with Rclone¶

Rclone can be used to back up data using the same connection details you would use with smbclient.

Configuration¶

Create or update your Rclone configuration file by running the command rclone config. You can then check the connecting settings by using ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf, or in some cases editing this file directly if needed.

Your rclone.conf file should have an entry that looks like this:

[my-nas]
type = smb
host = <nasaddress>
user = <username>
pass = <encrypted, redacted>
domain = <domain>

Running copy¶

The copy command only transfers new or updated files; no deletions are made on the remote.

rclone copy mydata/ my-nas:my-share$/mybackups --progress

Running sync¶

The sync command makes the destination exactly match the source. Files on the remote that are not present in the source will be deleted.

rclone sync mydata/ my-nas:my-share$/mybackups --progress

You can safely test these commands without making any changes by adding the --dry-run flag:

rclone sync mydata/ my-nas:my-share$/mybackups --dry-run --progress

This will show what would be transferred or deleted without actually performing the operation.