Hi,

I need to back up our Windows file server onto our Linux backup server. The data is sensitive, so we need to transfer it to the backup server in an encrypted format.

We are planning on having the windows server put all the file in one large .7z file and then uploading that file to the backup server using SCP. The backup server will then backup the file to tape. The problem with this, is that the backup server does not know when the upload is finished and therefore does not know when to start archiving to tape. The backup server is on a tight schedule, so making the server just wait a long time is not really an option.

I know that the easy way to fix this is to have the backup server download the file from the windows machine, but we do not want to install an SCP server on the windows machine.


So is there any way that I can setup the backup server to detect the SCP connection closing and then trigger the backup-to-tape script to start?

Thanks.

There are two common ways to do this:
1.) Have the Windows machine send over a 0byte "trigger file" after it's done uploading the files it needs to backup. The backup server will have a cron job running every 1 minute to see if the trigger file has been written yet. If the trigger file exists, the backup file moves the data out of the way and removes the trigger file.

2.) Have the Windows server execute a batch job to send the file over and after the scp command finishes, do an ssh to the backup machine and issue some single command that triggers the backup process. You can even have the Windows server start the backup process itself and log out while it runs in the background (using the nohup command).

Thanks for the quick reply.

A question on your solution #2. Since this will be automated, how to I get the windows machine to execute a command/script over ssh?

Thanks.

ssh user@host "command"

Thanks.

Would that work for putty (run from command line) as well?