Tell me more ×
Server Fault is a question and answer site for professional system and network administrators. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

i'm in the process of setting up simple automated backups for my home machines, with the intent to backup to a server on my lan. i've found the following site for using my mac's time machine backup software with a ubuntu server, but have so far been unable to do the same for windows. i have windows 7 machines with the "backup and restore center", which i hope to use due to it's ease and automation.

my goals then are: make windows 7 backup and restore center backup to a local linux server.

my problems are: i've been unable to mount a linux drive on my machines. i found ext2 ifs for windows (sorry can't post link, new user restrictions) but this is not available for windows 7 (installer is not willing to run on win7). i have also tried the simpler, "right click a linux folder and set to sharing". this seemed plausible but i could not determine what the domain should be. either the default domain (the name of my windows 7 machine) is not correct for the linux machine, or this mount method is not correct and no matter what username and password i use the operation will fail.

if all else truly fails i have considered running a windows 7 virtual machine, but this seems overly complex, wasteful, and possibly prone to not work any better.

share|improve this question
(1) "Home machine" questions don't belong here. FAQ. (2) What you're asking for isn't officially supported by Microsoft as far as I'm aware - You can hack something together, but you'd be better off looking for backup software like Bacula or ArcServe. – voretaq7♦ Oct 7 '11 at 16:06

closed as off topic by MDMarra, Shane Madden, voretaq7♦, mailq, sysadmin1138♦ Oct 7 '11 at 16:12

Questions on Server Fault are expected to relate to professional server, networking, or related infrastructure administration within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions here.

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

At first. Can you access from Win7 machine to Linux sever shared folders ? Have you WRITE permission ? just use ordinary explorer, type in address bar \Server\Folder

all security settings you have to do on Linux server (user to access with domain and password)

Next. Windows 7 Home Premium does not support to backup to a network location. You can find more details on microsoft.com or via google.

share|improve this answer
i have windows 7 ultimate through msdn, i've used the backup tool with a second drive in the machine but am hoping to move it to remote machine. on a windows xp machine i have managed to mount the remote linux folder, on windows 7 though i'm required to provide a domain along with the username and password and i do not know what that domain would be. lastly despite setting the folder to a full wrx (chmod 777) i still cannot modify or add files to the folder. i'm hoping all i really need is to mount a folder on the linux drive and then tell windows backup to use it. – Adam Jul 9 '10 at 14:20
up vote 0 down vote

but i could not determine what the domain should be.

may be Linux machine name ?

another idea: try to mount ftp drive in windows and use this drive for backup? turn ftp server on in linux must be simple ...

share|improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.