Hello all – after an hour of fun and experimentation, we figured out how to configure a Drobo device with DroboShare as a Rsync server. I hope these instructions will save hours of headaches as Windows admins learn how to set up the DroboShare, an embedded Linux device!
We’ll be incorporating this into our Rsync White Paper complete with pictures and screenshots… but in the meantime, here are the bleeding edge instructions:
To use your Drobo as an Rsync server with BackupAssist you will first need to install and configure it with an Rsync Deamon.
1) Begin by setting up your Drobo as per the manufactures instructions, ensuring that you have enabled your Drobo to run DroboApps by doing the following:
From the Drobo Dashboard please open “Advanced Controls” and choose the “Tools” tab and then click “Setup” from the DroboShare section. Click the “DroboApps” tab and check “Enable DroboApps.”
2) You will then need to download the Drobo Rsync client and place the downloaded file in the DroboApps folder of your Drobo.
Client available from http://www.drobo.com/droboapps/downloads/index.php?id=12
3) To finish the installation of the Rsync on your Drobo you will need to reboot it.
4) After you Drobo has restarted use a file browser to navigate to the DroboApps/Rsync/ directory and using a plain text editor (such as notepad or wordpad) open the rsyncd.conf file and under the [Drobo0] entry replace all entries with the following and save the file:
path = /mnt/DroboShares/Drobo
comment = Drobo Share
read only = false
[Note: we assume here that your main Drobo share is called “Drobo”, which is the default name given to it by the Drobo client software.]
5) Now launch BackupAssist and create a new backup job with the Rsync component (File -> New Backup Job -> Rsync).
6) On the destination step of the Rsync setup enter the follow data replacing droboshare with the IP of your DroboShare and clicking Ignore when prompted for a username and password.
When choosing the path to backup, make sure that you create the path on the Drobo first (eg. through Windows Explorer), as BackupAssist will assume that the base path already exists.
This will now have set up your Drobo as an Rsync Daemon server.
4 thoughts on “Howto – configure a Drobo / DroboShare as an Rsync Server for remote, internet backups”
These instruction don’t seem to work on the latest version of rsync for DroboFs. Can you please provide updated institutions please?
Hi Rob,
I will get one of our support engineers to take a look at the Drobo backup guide and look into updating it.
Thank you for your feedback.
James
Any udpdate on this topic?
http://www.backupassist.com/rsync/Rsync_Hardware_Compatibility_List.pdf has more accurate instructions for setting up the drobofs as rsync backup. the one detail it has wrong, is that it will tell you to set “path on server:” to “drobo0”, you really want to set it to “drobofs”.
if your using the correct user/pass , path, port, IP address sner server type. And you still can’t connect. Mount the drobotapps share. Check the rsyncd.log on the drobo app share. if the log says rsync fails to start, try deletling rsyncd.pid, and rebooting the drobo.