How I got FreeNAS to backup to CrashPlan!

[el-John-o]

Most folks on this forum are pretty aware of the need for an off-site backup. An ideal low-cost solution for data redundancy, for example, is for a user to backup all of their machines to one central server (like one running FreeNAS) and then mirror the contents of that server to some sort of off-site backup. Be it another NAS unit with Rsync, or one of many cloud-storage solutions.

FreeNAS supports Rsync, and there are some cloud options that also support it. However, most of these are expensive, aren't TRULY unlimited (have caps over a certain amount of data, or simply only allow a certain amount of data with a pretty intense cost!), and many Rsync compatible firms get very very poor reviews. What is the point of a backup solution where you can't backup everything, or that won't be there when you need it?

CrashPlan is really popular for a lot of reasons. It garners excellent reviews, is very fast, doesn't have speed caps, AND is super affordable. A few bucks a month and you've got all the off-site storage you can eat. You can only backup from one computer per account, but Crashplan supports backing up from external drives AND, Crashplan software natively supports backing up multiple computers to one central computer, and then backing up that one central computer.

But, FreeNAS and CrashPlan aren't exactly 'compatible'. CrashPlan software doesn't work in FreeNAS, and CrashPlan doesn't support RSync.

So there were a few complicated and convoluted solutions out there, but I'll tell you what I did to get CrashPlan working with FreeNAS.

First, I salvaged an old computer. I had this laptop sitting in my closet forever, it's a 166MHz Pentium II CPU with 192MB of RAM. It has a 6GB hard-drive. And, it works just fine! I'm able to completely saturate my cable internet upload speed (which is only a measly 4mbps). So unless you have a really fast upload speed, an old machine will work just fine for this. It does not need to be a performance demon.

Next, I installed Ubuntu Server 12.04 32-bit. I configured it with OpenSSH, and the necessary tools to mount both NFS and Samba shares. I then configured Ubuntu to mount both my NAS's NFS share, and my Apple Time Capsule's CIFS (Samba) share automatically. I could have just as easily used Samba for both, however. NFS is much faster for me, but, with a 4mbps upload speed just about ANY FreeNAS configuration will be more than fast enough.

Next, I followed these instructions for installing CrashPlan on Ubuntu Linux AND configuring it via another computer. Just in case that link ever goes down, I'll copy the instructions below;

1) Download Crashplan for Linux from the Crashplan website

2) Extract the files and place them in a folder on the Ubuntu Server machine
(In my case, due to the very slow CPU I deemed it better to extract on my mac and copy the files rather than let the server extract the files. I think copied them over to a folder on the root drive called 'crash', and enabled a Samba share for that folder. You need to install Samba to access CIFS shares anyway, so I was already halfway there)

3) Install the CrashPlan engine

Code:

bash install.sh

4) Make sure the CrashPlan engine is started

Code:

/etc/init.d/crashplan start

Now here's the fun part. There's probably a way to configure crashplan on a non-GUI OS like Ubuntu Server, but why? The crashplan GUI is simply a client. By default, it connects to localhost, but it can be changed!

In Mac OS X (Sorry, haven't tested it on Windows but I'm sure you can adapt the settings. It's very similar for Linux, I know that)

5) Install Crashplan for Mac OS X

6)Edit the config file:

Code:

/Applications/CrashPlan.app/Contents/Resources/Java/conf/ui.properties

uncomment the line 'serviceport=4243' and change the port to 4200. So it should simply read;

Code:

serviceport=4200

Now, we need to make a simple SSH tunnel to the Ubuntu server. In Mac OS X this is done right from the terminal, otherwise use an SSH client on Windows.

From the OS X Terminal;

Code:

ssh -L 4200:localhost:4243 user@host

Where 'user' is your Ubuntu username and 'host' is the IP or hostname of the server. Enter the password when prompted.

Now, open up the CrashPlan application, and you'll actually be configuring your Ubuntu server! Log in, go to the 'backup' tab and click 'change' under the 'files' section. Select your FreeNAS share. In my case, I mounted FreeNAS at /media/nas and the time capsule at /media/atc, so I was able to select both in the application.

Boom, click 'start backup', and there ya go! Easy as pie!

CrashPlan's application ALSO works to backup to another machine. So, if you had an off-site machine running Windows, Linux or Mac OS X that for some reason you couldn't Rsync to, you could use Crashplan to backup your NAS to that machine.

This same solution would work (with a few less steps) over a Mac OS X server as well. I used an old computer running Ubuntu so that it could be a 'set-and-forget' always on solution that will automatically backup my NAS. After the initial backup (which will take a few days), it will backup the FreeNAS share every day at 3AM, automatically scanning for new or changed files.

It would ALSO work on a Windows powered server, however, Windows won't natively allow you to backup mounted or external drives. If you google around though, there is a workaround. Crashplan says they support it, but there is some sort of an issue with Windows not making it possible with their App.

So anyway, if you're like me and have old hardware laying around, I think this is an excellent way to have a backup of your NAS. It has the advantage of being always on without me having to leave my Windows PC's or Mac's on, it doesn't require complicated configuration on FreeNAS or weird scripts, AND it allows you to aggregate content from your entire network, like multiple NAS units, other network storage solutions, or even the hard drive on your computer (Crashplan automatically 'picks up where it left off' so if you share and mount your computers hard drive, CrashPlan will backup it's files whenever it can, and pick up where it left off each time the computer is turned on or is back on the network). You can also configure this server as a backup source for other computers running CrashPlan, maybe a computer at work or something. They don't need an account to backup to another CrashPlan machine (you only need an account to backup to the cloud). You could then configure CrashPlan to store backups in your NAS, making CrashPlan a super nice and easy way to backup any computer to your NAS. (However, if your hardware is as cruddy as mine it'll be slow!)

Hope this helps, maybe there's nobody else out there with the same unique circumstances as me (Wants to use Crashplan and has some extra hardware lying around, or a 24/7 server running Linux, OSX or Windows!). I think this is a LOT easier than the 'I'm not sure if this will work' solutions I've found. And it works great.

-John

 

[cyberjock]

First, I'd like to thank you for the lengthy post. Very informative for people that have never used Crashplan.

I think the topic is pretty misleading. You really didn't get FreeNAS to backup via Crashplan. What you did do is get Crashplan to backup via a second machine and a file share. You could backup via Amazon Cloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, or any one of the tons of other similar programs the same way you backup FreeNAS. In fact, my desktop uses Dropbox and it's folder is actually on my FreeNAS server already. So I have a copy of everything on my server as well as the cloud.

 

[el-John-o]

First, I'd like to thank you for the lengthy post. Very informative for people that have never used Crashplan.

I think the topic is pretty misleading. You really didn't get FreeNAS to backup via Crashplan. What you did do is get Crashplan to backup via a second machine and a file share. You could backup via Amazon Cloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, or any one of the tons of other similar programs the same way you backup FreeNAS. In fact, my desktop uses Dropbox and it's folder is actually on my FreeNAS server already. So I have a copy of everything on my server as well as the cloud.

Well, I apologize. I was just googling and searching and couldn't find any solution, and that was the best I came up with. Figured I'd post what I found and how I got it working.

I guess you're right though, I didn't technically get FreeNAS to work... I just got the volume I host with FreeNAS to backup to CrashPlan... I wish CrashPlan would create a FreeBSD version of their App so a plugin could be built into FreeNAS. That'd be sweet.. (Or, even better, support RSync so they wouldn't HAVE to maintain software for NAS solutions)

 

[cyberjock]

Well, I apologize. I was just googling and searching and couldn't find any solution, and that was the best I came up with. Figured I'd post what I found and how I got it working.

I guess you're right though, I didn't technically get FreeNAS to work... I just got the volume I host with FreeNAS to backup to CrashPlan... I wish CrashPlan would create a FreeBSD version of their App so a plugin could be built into FreeNAS. That'd be sweet.. (Or, even better, support RSync so they wouldn't HAVE to maintain software for NAS solutions)

That is exactly why we don't have a "good" solution for cloud backups. Besides, talking to others that work in IT the only places I see people actually using cloud storage is situations where the person that made the decision either:

1. Isn't an IT person.
2. Pretty freaking stupid


I have yet to ever hear a case where someone actually found cloud storage superior to your own backup system. Not to mention there's LOTS of people questioning the security of your data.

All it's going to take is for some startup to make a deal with Amazon Cloud to "borrow" your pictures, excel, etc for some kind of newfangled technology. I don't know about you, but the fact that we can expect technology being developed today to be able to gather all this information about you and store it is.. quite frankly... frightening. I'd rather not "give" up any more information than I have to. Feel free to call me a conspiracy theorist, but that IS coming. It's just a matter of when and how much stuff that database will have about YOU.

 

[fracai]

All it's going to take is for some startup to make a deal with Amazon Cloud to "borrow" your pictures, excel, etc for some kind of newfangled technology. I don't know about you, but the fact that we can expect technology being developed today to be able to gather all this information about you and store it is.. quite frankly... frightening. I'd rather not "give" up any more information than I have to. Feel free to call me a conspiracy theorist, but that IS coming. It's just a matter of when and how much stuff that database will have about YOU.

This is getting off topic, but I think that's the appeal of CrashPlan. You get several options for protecting your data when setting up your backups: use your account password to protect your archive key, use an alternate password to protect your archive key, provide your own key. In the first two scenarios, your files are encrypted with a key that is stored with the CrashPlan servers, albeit encrypted by some password. In the third scenario, your files are encrypted with a key that is never known to CrashPlan; all data is encrypted / decrypted locally and CrashPlan never sees the plaintext.

Anyway, I run TimeMachine backups and CrashPlan. I find CrashPlan to be sometimes quicker at getting access to my data than TimeMachine (mostly due to the interface) so when I've needed to recover small amounts of data I've turned to CrashPlan rather than my local backups.

 

[el-John-o]

That is exactly why we don't have a "good" solution for cloud backups. Besides, talking to others that work in IT the only places I see people actually using cloud storage is situations where the person that made the decision either:

1. Isn't an IT person.
2. Pretty freaking stupid


I have yet to ever hear a case where someone actually found cloud storage superior to your own backup system. Not to mention there's LOTS of people questioning the security of your data.

All it's going to take is for some startup to make a deal with Amazon Cloud to "borrow" your pictures, excel, etc for some kind of newfangled technology. I don't know about you, but the fact that we can expect technology being developed today to be able to gather all this information about you and store it is.. quite frankly... frightening. I'd rather not "give" up any more information than I have to. Feel free to call me a conspiracy theorist, but that IS coming. It's just a matter of when and how much stuff that database will have about YOU.

Well, I certainly don't think I'm 'pretty freaking stupid'.

Are you aware of the concept of encryption? It's not the same as just password protecting a folder. CrashPlan uses 384-bit encryption, including the ability to generate your own keys, and the ability to generate keys for your account as well (instead of relying just on passwords). It's pretty secure. There are still risks, sure, I guess, but 384-bit encryption is nothing to scoff at.

The appeal, is a low cost option for redundancy when others options aren't available. Sure, I could mirror a hard drive and stick that hard drive in a safety deposit box. I could invest in tape backups or burn tons and tons of Blu-Ray's, but none of those are an appealing or convenient solution for me. They are also dependent on me taking the time to do it. Another option is to have a second NAS at a remote location and use RSync or something similar, but I don't HAVE a remote location with internet access that I can do that with. Not to mention the added cost of a second NAS! So this works out pretty good for storing data off-site.

And no, I don't work in IT. But I'll tell ya who turned me on to CrashPlan, my stepdad who is an information security consultant who works with a number of banks (and most recently some p.h.ar.m [apparently that's censored] companies wanting to setup ways to allow doctors to prescribe over the internet, reducing fraudulent scripts. It'll be much harder to hack a pharmacies computer than it will be to forge a script!). The encryption level and software, he says, is similar to what the banks are using and stuff he has no problem with storing information on. It's configured using client-generated keys, further improving security.

I was behind an old lady at the grocery store the other day, she was afraid of technology too. She pulled out a huge wad of cash and lectured me on how one day some hacker was going to steal all of my money from that 'plastic' (referring to my debit card). She's right, it could happen. But her getting mugged and having her cash stolen is a far more likely scenario. Me losing all of my data due to infrequent or poor backups is more likely than some super-secret illuminati breaking top-of-the-line encryption and stealing my vacation photos and iTunes library.

 

[cyberjock]

I don't know much about CrashPlan, but if you are correct I agree. But I still don't like handing my data to someone else. Nobody will value your data more than you. Not to mention backup and recovery of multi-TB could prove hard to swallow over internet speeds + the fact that more than 50% of ISPs in the country already have caps on data downloads/uploads per month before they bill you extra for "excessive usage".

I see cloud storage as a solution to a problem that was made up just so that cloud storage could solve it. Sure it sounds all "fancy" right now in 2013, but its really unproven. Not to mention some people have horror stories of failed syncs resulting in corrupted data that the cloud provider couldn't explain, etc etc etc. Anyone that wants off-site backups could just as easily have setup their very own setup. If I can backup my cell phone over the internet from anywhere in the world in seconds why can't the same be done with any other server environment.

The whole concept just reeks of too many potential to fail. Even my simple dropbox setup has had sync issues when laptop isn't connected to the internet the second I update a file.

Like I said.. I have yet to ever hear of a case anywhere on planet Earth where paying for cloud storage was somehow better than doing your own backups but I've heard PLENTY of horror stories.

 

[fracai]

CrashPlan also offers a service where they send you a 2 (?) TB drive to seed or restore a backup. It costs more, but it solves the speed / cap problem that you mention.

I also don't see "the cloud" as "un-proven". It's basically the same concept that we used to use with mainframes and dumb terminals: it's more efficient to consolidate backups than it is for everyone to roll their own. You can certainly set up your own offsite backup, but most people don't have the time or knowledge to do so. Even if it's not "better" than a personally owned backup system, it's certainly better than nothing. Plus, it's going to get more people doing backups.

Finally, horror stories can have a tendency to mask success stories. Personally, I've never had a problem with CrashPlan and the only problem I've had with Dropbox is when I accidentally tried to have a disk image mounted in two places (re. user error).

 

[el-John-o]

CrashPlan also offers a service where they send you a 2 (?) TB drive to seed or restore a backup. It costs more, but it solves the speed / cap problem that you mention.

I also don't see "the cloud" as "un-proven". It's basically the same concept that we used to use with mainframes and dumb terminals: it's more efficient to consolidate backups than it is for everyone to roll their own. You can certainly set up your own offsite backup, but most people don't have the time or knowledge to do so. Even if it's not "better" than a personally owned backup system, it's certainly better than nothing. Plus, it's going to get more people doing backups.

Finally, horror stories can have a tendency to mask success stories. Personally, I've never had a problem with CrashPlan and the only problem I've had with Dropbox is when I accidentally tried to have a disk image mounted in two places (re. user error).

Absolutely. Not many people get on internet forums and such to rave, some do, but more hop on to rant.

I've heard horror stories about off-site backups too! Like a former employer of my wife's who had a professional IT firm setup a server to backup all of his important data from his two locations into one central off-site backup (the computers themselves had been configured in RAID1 for drive redundancy). Well, it finally happened, a lightning strike wiped out one of the computers which contained some important data. BAM, the several-thousand-dollar server in another location had nothing but corrupted data, it was unsalvageable. He even paid a ton of cash to have a company try and salvage data from the drives, and they were able to get very little. They had no warning that the backup on the server was corrupted. But when they needed it most, what it gave them was garbage.

Sometimes life sucks! But the difference is, it's not new. When a Ford pickup truck has a transmission go out, it's not news. We've come to accept that sometimes transmissions fail. When when a fancy new transaxle in a hybrid fails, it's front page headlines, a safety issue, the end of the world! When terrestrial backup solutions fail, we dust ourselves off and figure out how to prevent it from happening again. When a cloud backup fails, we flood message boards!

Also, there ARE situations where a cloud backup is better. Not all of us on this forum are enterprise consumers. Those of us who just want our home computers backed up, are perfect for CrashPlan. I don't have the opportunity to have a 24/7 server off site, nor do I want to spend the money on extra hardware. (I would've used Crashplan alone had someone not given me an old IBM server that I built into a home NAS). So that leaves removable media. I could buy some extra hard drives, stick them in the NAS, wait for them to Resilver, pull them out and store them somewhere like a safety deposit box. Or, perhaps more easily, mount them externally and copy my data over. But that takes time, requires interaction from me, and requires me to physically shuttle the data. It also means my backups might be weeks old. Alternatively I could use optical media, but that degrades over time, is incredibly slow, and limited in space. My best bet is blu-ray media at 50 gigs a pop. It'll take hours and hours to burn my backup to that media. It'll take a long time to the cloud too, BUT with optical media, I'm forced to swap discs, it requires interaction, NOT an ideal situation.

So, for lots of home users, a cloud backup makes a lot of sense. It requires no interaction from the user, it simply 'works'. Apart from initial setup, there's nothing to do. After the initial backup, it's also real-time. CrashPlan can be configured to update the very second a new file is detected. I have it configured to upload at 3AM every day, for the simple fact that real-time backups might interfere with my use of the internet (slow me down sending a large file attachment, and the way Cable internet works, when I'm saturating my upload link with CrashPlan, my download speed suffers as well). And that's it! There's nothing to do. When I put a file in the NAS, at 3AM it'll be backed up to the cloud. CrashPlan backs up my MBP in real time to the NAS (which then goes to the cloud), and Time Machine backs it up to a Time Capsule (which has the advantage of being bootable and easier to restore).

So for a home user, it's a great solution. I have my in-house backup (Time Capsule, for example). If a hard disk were to fail or my MBP get stolen, it's easy to restore. Same as the backup for the desktop. I get full gigabit speeds to restore the backup from, shouldn't take more than a couple hours at worst. However, if all of that fails, WORST case scenario, I have my cloud backup. With a 50mbit download speed, it shouldn't take more than a couple days to completely download my backup. (CrashPlan can also ship you your backup in Hard Disks for a fee) That's not super duper ideal, but it does provide protection in case my home backup fails completely.

As far as caps, well, as the above posted mentioned; CrashPlan has an option (albeit not cheap, but even WITH that extra cost it's still way cheaper that building an off-site NAS. It's $165 to have the 2TB drive shipped to you, shipped back, and copied over into your backup, then it's just like $5 a month for unlimited backups over the internet) that lets you get around that. Also, no terrestrial ISP's are charging more, a few are throttling or 'warning' as is the case with my ISP. I have a 200GB cap. If I exceed that, I'll get a warning. In my case, my initial backup is going to be about 170GB. So I'll probably get a warning letter. With my ISP, you don't start getting throttled until you get three warnings in a 6 month period. After the initial backup, I'll likely not upload more than a couple gigs at most. Also, my ISP even admits that they only monitor some markets, as they don't have the technology yet to monitor usage in all areas. If I happen to be in one of those areas, then my poor poor ISP is going to be forced to honor their end of the deal in offering me 'unlimited' internet. However, if none of that is an option, then you can STILL limit how much CrashPlan uploads per month. Plus, they do use compression and deduplication (though both can be turned off).

The same cap issues exist even if you have an off-site NAS. My ISP doesn't care if it's going to the 'cloud' or a server at work. So, if the cap is the issue , then that leaves physical off-site backups. That's not at all ideal. Whether hard disks or optical media, it requires physical shuffling of disks and storing of disks. Not every home has a NAS RAID unit that would allow them to simply swap disks in a hot swap bay and use software to automatically mirror. Most home users have only one hard disk, in their computer, and are backing up with Crashplan. They'd need to get an external, back up to that manually, and store it somewhere off-site. (IMHO, you don't have a backup if a copy isn't off-site)

 

[cyberjock]

CrashPlan also offers a service where they send you a 2 (?) TB drive to seed or restore a backup. It costs more, but it solves the speed / cap problem that you mention.

Very interesting.. but why bother with mailing and stuff when a spare copy within driving distance(at home, friend's house, etc) is far easier.

I also don't see "the cloud" as "un-proven". It's basically the same concept that we used to use with mainframes and dumb terminals: it's more efficient to consolidate backups than it is for everyone to roll their own. You can certainly set up your own offsite backup, but most people don't have the time or knowledge to do so. Even if it's not "better" than a personally owned backup system, it's certainly better than nothing. Plus, it's going to get more people doing backups.

Dumb terminals aren't the same as cloud storage. With dumb terminals the ONLY copy was the server. So hell yeah that was watched very closely and it wasn't sold in the same fashion as it is now. There was no syncing the data between local and server. The data was either yours and on your server or wasn't yours and wasn't your server either.

Finally, horror stories can have a tendency to mask success stories. Personally, I've never had a problem with CrashPlan and the only problem I've had with Dropbox is when I accidentally tried to have a disk image mounted in two places (re. user error).

True, but I still can go back to my first comment.. what problem was there with doing your own backups that needed solving by using a cloud? Do you think if you need to do a restore and somehow Amazon's backup got trashed somehow(let's face it.. Amazon has had some serious FUBAR lately) they're going to try very hard? Not nearly as hard as you would if you had the drive and your backups were messed up.

 

[Raymond Matos]

John, what plan did you go with? Im thinking of the same thing.

I have my freenas backed up to another at a remote location, but for $5 a month i would consider a "cloud" based one too.

 

[fracai]

Very interesting.. but why bother with mailing and stuff when a spare copy within driving distance(at home, friend's house, etc) is far easier.

Personally, it's because keeping stuff online means my backup is fresher and easier than manual backups and driving. And simpler than building a box or buying storage to keep online at a relative's home.

Dumb terminals aren't the same as cloud storage. With dumb terminals the ONLY copy was the server. So hell yeah that was watched very closely and it wasn't sold in the same fashion as it is now. There was no syncing the data between local and server. The data was either yours and on your server or wasn't yours and wasn't your server either.

I know, I was just drawing an analogy to mainframe vs. local system.

True, but I still can go back to my first comment.. what problem was there with doing your own backups that needed solving by using a cloud? Do you think if you need to do a restore and somehow Amazon's backup got trashed somehow(let's face it.. Amazon has had some serious FUBAR lately) they're going to try very hard? Not nearly as hard as you would if you had the drive and your backups were messed up.

One, before CrashPlan, I had my local backups, but that was it. I had been planning to keep a drive in a safety deposit box / at work, but I never got around to implementing the plan. For cheaper than the cost of the media that I'd have needed at the time I have a remote backup that is always on. It's also not necessarily that I couldn't do my own backups, but CrashPlan provided an option that was cheaper and easier to implement.

Two, CrashPlan (they don't use S3 as far as I'm aware) will try as hard as I've payed them to restore the data. I've seen at least one account where they alerted a user that their backups had been corrupted and sent a free drive to get them back up to speed. If they can't restore it, hopefully I'm not finding out because my house burned down with my local backups. It's also been my experience that if the problem is bad enough to need recovery effort, it's likely that the data is simply gone. I know it's not always that simple, but there's a reason that it's a better idea to create a backup than rely on recovery efforts.

Three, I'll say again that your average user is not going to build their own backup box or start swapping drives at a friends house. They're probably not even going to have a backup in the same room.

Just because "cloud" backup can fail, doesn't mean it's going to. I think the odds are in favor of it working, but it doesn't hurt to have another contingency.

John, what plan did you go with? Im thinking of the same thing.
I have my freenas backed up to another at a remote location, but for $5 a month i would consider a "cloud" based one too.

I bought 4 years of Unlimited family plus last spring for $287. Unfortunately, at the start of this year they raised prices so that $6 per month is now $9 per month. You can still backup a single computer for $4 a month.

 

[Raymond Matos]

I bought 4 years of Unlimited family plus last spring for $287. Unfortunately, at the start of this year they raised prices so that $6 per month is now $9 per month. You can still backup a single computer for $4 a month.

So could i could tech use the one computer plan and backup all of freenas right. How do they know how many computers are using the same plan?

 

[cyberjock]

Just posted to Slashdot.org.... EU Citizens Warned Not To Use US Cloud Services Over Spying Fears

Color me shocked.... *SHOCKED*

 

[fracai]

So could i could tech use the one computer plan and backup all of freenas right. How do they know how many computers are using the same plan?

Each computer identifies itself when uploading to CrashPlan. You can certainly do things like mount your other computers on a central machine and back up from there, though it won't be as fast and will put more burden on your machine and network.

Just posted to Slashdot.org.... EU Citizens Warned Not To Use US Cloud Services Over Spying Fears

Color me shocked.... *SHOCKED*

I'm not really shocked either, though I would exclude services like CrashPlan and SpiderOak that encrypt your data before it leaves your machine. In order to spy there, the software would have to have a backdoor and / or the company would have to be actively lying about their encryption practices. I suppose that's possible, but it seems like a stretch to believe that a company would risk their reputation around such a cornerstone feature of their service.

 

[cyberjock]

I'm not really shocked either, though I would exclude services like CrashPlan and SpiderOak that encrypt your data before it leaves your machine. In order to spy there, the software would have to have a backdoor and / or the company would have to be actively lying about their encryption practices. I suppose that's possible, but it seems like a stretch to believe that a company would risk their reputation around such a cornerstone feature of their service.

It wouldn't be difficult at all to setup a backdoor. TONS of companies have been caught doing it in the past. Besides, these days, if the US gov't has a law that says they can view their data do you really think a company is going to risk pissing off the US gov't. Being someone that was involved with US gov't contracts with publicly traded companies, you'd be scared if you saw some of the things the US gov't get permission to do when these companies want a US contract. The bigger problem is that you have no way of knowing if you are truly being protected as an employee or if your data is being secretly sold.

Just look at Skype. Microsoft centralized the Skype network and all requests for how "secure" the connection is have gone unanswered. Sure, companies can claim encryption but just because they "forgot" to tell you that they also have the key doesn't exactly mean your data is more secure. It's all about making your product look superior and "forgetting" those things that make your product suck. Do you think Symantec says "we have great AV detection rates.. but we slow your system down by 3x more than any other company"? Hell no. You'll hear their rhetoric about how great their AV detection is and conveniently not tell you how much their software bogs down your system. I turn on my SEP firewall and I can't get above 30MB/sec to my FN server. Turn it off, instant 110+MB/sec. I have yet to see them acknowledge it but they'll have no problem telling you to disable their firewall. WTF.

 

[fracai]

It wouldn't be difficult at all to setup a backdoor. TONS of companies have been caught doing it in the past. Besides, these days, if the US gov't has a law that says they can view their data do you really think a company is going to risk pissing off the US gov't. Being someone that was involved with US gov't contracts with publicly traded companies, you'd be scared if you saw some of the things the US gov't get permission to do when these companies want a US contract. The bigger problem is that you have no way of knowing if you are truly being protected as an employee or if your data is being secretly sold.

I think the only thing I have to add there is that you can always encrypt your data on your own if you don't trust the vendor to not make a copy of the key.

 

[cyberjock]

I think the only thing I have to add there is that you can always encrypt your data on your own if you don't trust the vendor to not make a copy of the key.

Very true. Truecrypt containers are a good option. Not sure how well they would work. If the container file has to be reuploaded that could REALLY suck if its 1GB+. Dropbox uses blocks so you wouldn't have to upload the whole file again. Again though, it wouldn't take much work for companies toadd in code to sniff the encryption keys for common programs like Truecrypt. But to be honest I think at that point you are either being deliberately targeted or you're really making up excuses for being super-paranoid.

 

[el-John-o]

John, what plan did you go with? Im thinking of the same thing.

I have my freenas backed up to another at a remote location, but for $5 a month i would consider a "cloud" based one too.

I just have the CrashPlan+ unlimited.

What I do, is I have my little laptop running Ubuntu Server and have the NAS selected as the 'location for inbound backups'. Then, I have the crashplan software installed on all machines, and they all backup to the Ubuntu laptop. The ubuntu laptop takes those files and puts them in a folder on the NAS. Then, it UPLOADS ALL of those files, each machines backup, and the other files on the NAS that aren't stored locally on any machine, to the cloud.

Given the age of the hardware the backups are a bit slow but it's all in the background, so it's no big deal. They only go to the cloud as fast as your internet connection anyway.

Cyberjock, to answer your question 'what does it solve', it's simply cost and convenience.

The cost of a remote NAS simply doesn't work. For one, I don't HAVE a place to install a remote NAS and secondly, I don't have the budget to build another NAS. Beyond that, it's convenience. For 5 bucks a month, I don't have to manually backup to optical media or an external drive, I don't have to drive to someones house and be that weird paranoid friend who stores a hard drive in his closet. I could always take a backup to work, but again, it requires manually backing up, backups being delayed, and having to shuttle backups back and forth.

With a cloud backup, it's completely set-and-forget. I don't do ANYTHING beyond the initial setup and my system is in the cloud. It backs up every single day (could be real time if I wanted but there's a concern about robbing my bandwidth when I need it), and requires none of my time. That's convenient, for me.

Yes, backdoors could exists. I'm not too worried about homeland security. They've got no reason to believe I'm a threat but if they did, they could also just get a search warrant for my home or a wire tap subpeona. My grandfather was with the FBI for a number of years. They went into peoples homes while they were away, took information off of their computers, left everything just the way it was (only now backdoored and bugged with a copy of their data in an FBI crime lab) and the citizen was none the wiser. When it comes to national security or organized crime, there's a lot the government can do, like it or not.

With the encryption of CrashPlan, I feel my data is secure. Ya never know, things CAN happen, but I'm just not that paranoid. Marketing firms are looking at these cloud datacenters with dollarsigns knowing all the data they could farm, but being encrypted, they can't access it. They could download the files right on the server, but it won't matter, they can't get to any of it. CrashPlan has 448-bit encryption, encrypted at the client machine, and use SAS II compliant Data Centers. Stuff could still happen, but it's not something I'm concerned with. The likelihood is slim, and I'm not backing up content that is illegal or incriminating (so even if the gub'ment gon' get in there they aren't going to find anything), so that pretty much makes the EU statement useless. Regardless, again, the data is encrypted. They'll just get a big chunk of files that will require a LOT of work to access...

 

[mattyakel]

so I'm a little late to this thread, but I was wondering if anyone here could help. I am running "FreeNAS-9.1.0-RELEASE-x64 (dff7d13) / Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3470T CPU @ 2.90GHz / 16260MB" I added the "CrashPlan" plugin, which I realize boots up into a jail, but it will not start I just get this.

I have set the tunables to enable the Linux kernel like it stated. (and rebooted, several times) Any Ideas?


Thanks for the help in advance.