[TUTORIAL] Transfer a backup to a remote location using Rsync through a SSH tunnel be

[huotg01]

I made a tutorial to help those who are interested to transfer a local backup to a remote location using Rsync through a SSH tunnel between 2 Asus routers.

What should be an easy exercise on a normal Linux environment is a little bit more complex in a router environment, mainly because the transient nature of what is going on this little device. When setting up the environment, I came to the conclusion that it would have been a lot easier to do it with my Ubuntu/Linux box, but I decided to keep going on because not all my friends have a linux server, but all of them have a router with a usb port in which they can plug an external usb disk, and transfer transparently their own backup somewhere else.

Please note that there is a built-in feature that is supposed to do just that, but it was not working for me.

This tutorial is located in the wiki at the URL:
https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...c-through-a-SSH-tunnel-between-2-Asus-routers

In doing this tutorial, I understood why there is often errors in the first version of these texts. Quite often in the process of doing it, we change things on the fly to try to make them simpler, or better organized, creating in fact something different of what is really installed in our environment.

By doing so, I for sure did introduced many errors...

There is many different ways of doing what is explained in the tutorial, many probably better that what I did.

Also, some section are not really documented.

Therefore feel free to ask questions, make recommendations, suggest changes and make corrections using this thread.

Thanks,

GH

 

[ychauhan4u]

Thanks, Will Try it tonight

 

[huotg01]

I made some changes to the scripts and added a few more in order to notify users by email on the result of the transfers.
The tutorial is located in the wiki at the URL:
https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...c-through-a-SSH-tunnel-between-2-Asus-routers

 

[opheliagrimm]

wow

This has been a brilliant effort on your part. The tutorial is very well illustrated.

It does appear a lot more difficult and involved than I had envisioned but that maybe a small, one-time price to pay for more robust functionality than the built in feature offers (which I am still using on the old firmware).

Question, would my RT N66U be sufficient to handle this? I know the AC68u has a more powerful processor (800mhz dual core). How is the cpu load during these transfers for you?

 

[huotg01]

wow

This has been a brilliant effort on your part. The tutorial is very well illustrated.

It does appear a lot more difficult and involved than I had envisioned but that maybe a small, one-time price to pay for more robust functionality than the built in feature offers (which I am still using on the old firmware).

Question, would my RT N66U be sufficient to handle this? I know the AC68u has a more powerful processor (800mhz dual core). How is the cpu load during these transfers for you?

Maybe the way the tutorial is built makes it look more difficult than it is ? Anyways the effort to do it first time was not negligible, but adapting the recipe to someone own needs should be easier. In fact if you use only one disk and only one partition on the disk, then the process would be even easier. On the other side, having a usb flash drive (for Optware and swapping) on the second port (still not implemented in my case) would probably make the solution stronger.

That said, if the built in solution works well and have all the functions required by the user, I don't see why someone would replicate my solution. But as you mentioned, the presented solution is I think a lot more flexible and robust.

About your question regarding the RT-n66, my daughter has one and I'm about to start a transfer with her too. Then we will know... What I think ? Since all the transfers (at least mine) are done during the night, the 66u won't have anything else to do, therefore it should be available and even happy to do something in this boring period.

The next step for me will be to organize each side local backups around rsync, building then, in a way, a full control center.

Last thing, with the recent firmwares, I still have the problem with the "healthy check" of the ntfs partition. It delays the mounting of the disk. Usually it disappears after a chkdsk on the PC, but usually there is no fault found. Either I will eventually find what cause this (it shouldn't be that mysterious?) and fix it, or reformat the disk in ext4 . Now it is nothing else that a little and short inconvenience.

 

[ngoonee]

Hi, thanks for the tutorial. Most of it was stuff I already knew and ran on my Raspberry Pi 3, but now that I've got a better router I thought to move the NAS load to it to free the Pi 3 for more interesting stuff. Came across your previous thread while searching for solutions to the OOM error rsync threw, and that's the final step for me I think.

If it helps, my current setup (not yet involving the router) has rsync scripts on my linux box and windows box, while also using foldersync for sftp backups from my smartphones.

Also, it seems like you'd only have your most recent copy, so you should consider rsnapshot (that's what I use on the Pi and will also be using on my router now, entware-ng has it) for real historical backups. Would be very helpful with ransomware, for example.