This is probably a very easily solved issue, but I'm new to linux so please bear with me.

My office uses a local Linux server running Red Hat 6.1 for an ancient text-based accounting program. The client computers (about 5 or so) run WinXP pro and use Tinyterm emulator to log in to the server. One of the client computers (we'll call it client1) had a user in Windows configured to do scheduled backups of the Linux server. The office worker for client1 was instructed to log in to xp as the backup user and leave the pc on all night and it would backup the linux server, then it would copy that backup to an external hard drive, attached to client1.

The c: hard drive on client1 died and no backups were available. I have restored the computer with a fresh xp install, but I have no idea what method was used to back the server up. I'm sure samba was used but I cannot find any documentation or instructions left behind by whoever set the system up. I have the ip address of the server and have restored tinyterm to be able to log in from client1. I also have access to the command line on the server. I just need help with being able to back the linux server up from a windows xp client.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice/solutions!

Hmmm, the problem seems a little bit vague, so it's tough to say. Do you know where the files that need to be backed up live on server? If so I expect all that the back-ups are doing is connecting to a SAMBA share on the server , copying the files over to the local hard drive, and then copying them onto the external disk. I'm guessing that there was some sort of scheduled task in Windows (run under the backup account) that did this. Can you browse for open shares on the machine (you should be able to do this in Windows Explorer, but I'm not a Windows person at all so I can't tell you the exact mechanism)? In principle if you can figure out how to access the data from the Windows box over SAMBA, you can just re-create the scheduled task to copy it. Probably some sort of Windows scripting (VBScript perhaps?) was used for the actual copying (I assume it copied different days' backups to different files labeled by date, although perhaps this assumes too much -- you really should tell us what the backed up files looked like). If there is a SAMBA share it may be password protected -- hopefully you have the credentials. If not you'll need to examine the SAMBA config on Linux (hopefully someone in the office has root access) and reset the credentials of the SAMBA backup user. I'm not much of an expert on SAMBA but I believe there's a utility -- smbpasswd -- that does this. You might need to do some googling to figure out the exact procedure.

I'm not sure if this is much help but maybe it can get you looking in the right place. BTW, as I'm sure you can tell Red Hat 6.1 is seriously ancient and unsupported (no security updates for over 7 years). If possible your office should look into moving to a more up to date Linux server. You might need to contact the vendor of the accounting program (if they're still around) to see what options you have.

Edit to add: If this server contains any critically important data that could be lost, you might consider engaging the services of a consultant to help you through the problem. If you're not careful, you can easily make things worse by messing around with stuff if you don't understand what you're doing. If this is business critical data, it might just be better to eat a few hundred bucks to let someone experienced and knowledgeable help you out of this.

Thanks for your fast response!

I tried accessing the server drive directly from client1, without success. The only way I could access it was through the tinyterm emulator program. I assume that it is just the database files that were being backed up, but I'm not sure. I did look at some previous backups and there were many folders that looked like database files. It's just so antiquated I have a hard time making heads or tails of it. The setup is a result of the reliability of the linux OS and the reluctance of the owner to update something that isn't broken. So over the years the clients have been updated to stay current, while finding a way to interface and backup the database that is 15+ years old.

We do have root access on the server, I just haven't dug into it yet without getting more of an idea what I was getting into.

I guess I was hoping there was an easy samba solution that I was unaware of, one that I could implement myself. I am in agreement that it would be best to get a good consultant involved if no easy solution is apparent.

Thanks again for your help =)

Did anyone ever restore a backup to the Linux server?

Can you tell the owner that the system is now broken and it is time to get a new accounting package? If no-one knows how to restore the data, the backups are of limited use.

Do you see any Cron jobs running on the Linux server?

Have you looked at the server's logs for clues?

It sounds as if you were using some sort of Windows backup software, which likely died with your machine.

If you want to access the Linux box via SAMBA, I'd start by checking if SAMBA is actually running. Just a quick

ps -ax|grep samba

should answer that question. If not, then it's likely your backup machine was running some type of nfs client, or even using ftp/sftp to perform the backup. If it is running, then you should be able to find the config options in /etc/samba.conf, including the location of the password files.

As far as what to use going forward, I wouldn't necessarily try to recreate what was there. In fact, given that an entire RH 6.1 install is only going to be a couple of GB of data, I'd probably dump the whole thing into a virtual machine (VirtualBox or VMware) and then backup the entire server as need from a Windows host. That, or rsync, which works via sftp, would work find for a small system.

Thanks, I was able to get in with the root id and password through client1 and backup with Windows Backup.

Now I am in the process of trying to get virtualbox running so we can get rid of this old hardware. Trying to get an iso of RH6.1 with no success. Hopefully the program will run through 6.2, which is the only available version from Red Hat.

Thanks again for all your help =)

i would have been suprised IF you found one
rh6 came out in 1999

in the long term ( and maybe short term too) look into using some other NEW software other than
" an ancient text-based accounting program" ???

the cost of keeping that antique code running is only going to get exponentially larger in a very short amount of time

Well said. There can be no doubt about this.

Oops. Sorry I didn't check back on this sooner. I actually have a copy of RedHat 6.1 that I could put up for you to download, if you still need it.

PM me if you do.