
Show HN: A tool for painless automated backups - christophetd
https://github.com/christophetd/duplicacy-autobackup
======
mtmail
If it uses
[https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy)
in the background it needs a (huge?) disclaimer that a $20 per year license
for commercial use is required.

What is the license on your code?

~~~
christophetd
Thank you for pointing this out, I forgot this specificity of duplicacy. I
added a disclaimer: [https://github.com/christophetd/duplicacy-
autobackup/commit/...](https://github.com/christophetd/duplicacy-
autobackup/commit/6f4b67115ba1990715abd2c89ee2f9fc4eec6fb4)

Regarding the license of my code I'm unsure what to use. The license of
duplicacy
([https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/LICENSE...](https://github.com/gilbertchen/duplicacy/blob/master/LICENSE.md))
states that " _Modification and redistribution are permitted, but commercial
use of derivative works is subject to the same requirements_ ", so it seems to
me that as long as I include such a disclaimer, it should be fine. I opened an
issue on the duplicacy project to ask the author his opinion.

------
45h34jh53k4j
I used to use duplicacy, but switched to Duplicati:
[https://www.duplicati.com/](https://www.duplicati.com/)

Works in mono in all OS's, ive used it on mac, linux and windows. Supports GPG
(public) and AES (secret) key encryption, all the cloud backends, etc.
Provides a Web UI.

Its also LGPL so no concerns about commercial licensing ala Duplicacy.

~~~
christophetd
I initially wanted to use duplicati as well, but I tried it twice at a one
year interval and both times the web UI felt very buggy, and I have a hard
time trusting for my backups a tool that has a buggy UI.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Given how close 'duplicacy' sounds to 'duplicity', and that they have the
exact same purpose (backup tool), I'm surprised they haven't been sued yet.
Particularly since there is a paid license cost:

[https://duplicacy.com/buy.html](https://duplicacy.com/buy.html)

~~~
christophetd
Agreed, the names are terribly chosen and very confusing. There was a
discussion on the topic here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14507778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14507778)

------
ThatHNGuy
I find rclone much better
([https://rclone.org/docs/](https://rclone.org/docs/))

~~~
ptspts
Can you use rclone for incremental, content-deduplicated backups? Is it as
easy as Duplicacy to use?

~~~
kn0where
I haven't used rclone, but `rsync --link-dest` lets you create an incremental
snapshot using hard links so that you don't have duplicate files between
snapshots. Wrap it in a shell script, and you have something surprisingly
useful.

I won't link to my wrapper script because I don't want my HN account linked to
my github/real name but this guy's work is what I based mine on:
[https://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.ht...](https://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.html)

~~~
ptspts
rsync --link-dest can't do content deduplication, can't upload to the cloud
and it's much more inconvenient to use for doing and managing backups than
Duplicity, Duplicacy or Duplicati.

~~~
stephenr
> rsync _snip_ can't upload to the cloud

First you have to settle on a definition for cloud before you get to make
claims about what tools can or can’t do.

~~~
ThatHNGuy
rclone can!

------
confounded
Any support for unattended asymmetric encryption, with the private key stored
off-box?

~~~
christophetd
Duplicacy doesn't support it, so I don't plan to add support for it either.

------
_o_
Take this as a positive criticism, I dont want to put you down, but today
everyone is considering backup as problem of moving data. Which is wrong. This
is far from what I would expect from backup tool. You have many targets but
than this is just a data moving tool to the cloud. On the other side rarely
any serious organisation moves the data to the cloud and even if they do, it
is considered as second tier storage. Primary target is always to the streamer
(tape), it is THE only storage that was time proven. Also, there are some
concepts; incremential, differential, delta, rehydrating, archiving, lets not
even go into deduplication... and there are open source solutions for that.
Backup word is not a simple tag, do your homework and study the backup field,
it is highly complex and far from moving the data from point A to point B,
maybe just a thought to show you the importance, some organisations have
separate backbone for backups and disk arrays to minimise downtime, the data
are not always on disk, the minimum you need is flushing the disk cache, for
the database you will hit into words like freeze, for virtual machines...
well.. good luck :)

But anyway, nice to see you like it enough to write a tool, just keep on going
:)

\----

After my initial post, I was dowvoted. To justify that: this is not a backup,
it is just an alternative to rsync or cp with multiple targets and more of
something I would run after a real backup has finished. If someone is looking
for real backup, there are multiple open source backup products that know
their domain. This one clearly does not.

~~~
ptspts
The scope of OP's project is to make Duplicacy (an incremental, deduplicating
backup tool) easier to install and easier to use for client-initiated,
periodically autoscheduled backups.

Can you recommend anything the OP should do differently to achieve these
goals?

~~~
_o_
I did. Now you can downvote me even more. I have finished the discussion.

