I have scripts setup to save critical data files in tarballs and transfer them to one or more computers on my LAN. I've been doing this for years - ever since I lost a hard disk once suddenly. Between Linux system this is easy to do using scp or rsync. My question is this: Is there a way to do this to a Windows machine?

I already have samba set up and can access the Windows machine via smbclient. But nothing I have read indicates any way to automate that process in a script. It seems to require user interaction. Is there a way to run smbclient in a script mode? Or perhaps ftp?

Regards,
Jeff

If you are running this as root, you can mount the Windows share and do a simple copy. That can all be scripted.

Or... you could set it up with an FTP server and use a script with the "ncftpput" command.

er, which way are you going? TO windows or FROM windows?

-K.

Thanks for the reply. And, I'm sorry, I thought I said... TO windows. I do WORK on Linux. Windows is only good for storage. ;-)

I would just do something like this:
------------------------
#!/bin/sh

smbmount //192.168.0.50/winshare /mnt/smbtemp -o username=someuser password=somepassword

cp /home/myfiles.tar /mnt/smbtemp

umount /mnt/smbtemp
------------------------

then cron the creation of the tar and the above

-K.

Hi Kevin;

I gave that a shot, but it came back saying:

smbmnt must be installed suid root for direct user mounts (500,500)
smbmnt failed: 1

I take it this would work if I was su, but I want to be able to run this script as a normal user.

If you can run an FTP server on Winbox, then use the "ncftput" command in a script. Of course, it requires that you have the ncftp package installed.

-K.

I have ncftp installed. I'll have to look into what it takes to run an ftp server on the Win2k box. Thanks. I take it there's no way to get around the suid root requirement for smbmount? That would be a really slick way to do it. :-)

You could use "sudo".

"man sudo" for more info

-K.

I think there are also programs that will let you run an scp like server inside windows. Then you could use the scripts that you already have. I looked into this about a year ago and forgot most of what I wanted and concluded that I should just dump windows all together, I do remember that it was rather hard to find though. Good luck!

Thanks, I'll look into that. The situation is rather amusing. Over the years I've discovered that one of the best ways to protect critical data is to copy it to several locations regularly. The machine on my LAN which is best suited for this physically is a dual-boot machine (Win2K/Linux) and I have no control over which the user will be operating at any given time. So, I'm trying to write a script which will detect which is booted and copy to an appropriate directory accordingly. Of course, when its booted in Linux, its trivial. I can tell when its booted in Win2k by a smbstatus call. If there were a way to script the smbmount from a normal user, I would have a solution. I'm not sure I want to use sudo, given all the security warnings (but I am going to look into it further).

"sudo" is designed for one thing... to allow normal users to do things that root is usually the only one allowed to do. That's EXACTLY what you are trying to do.

If implemented properly, it should not be a security hole.

-K.

Okay - on your recommendation, I'll give it a try. :-)