Hi everyone! I am relatively new to self hosting and I am in the process of repurposing an old desktop computer as an offsite/remote server that I will have at a friends house.

My setup:

  • Local: RPi 4 running openmediavault
  • Remote: HP EliteDesk SFF running TrueNAS SCALE

My plan was to connect the machines using tailscale and use the borg plugin in openmediavault to create a remote server repo and save deduplicating and encrypted backups from the local server to the remote server. However, it seems that in order to do that I need a borg plugin installed on the remote server for which there doesn’t seem to be a truenas app for. I know I could probably install it on the truenas server, but from what I have read, a truenas update could wipe the install and configuration.

Thus, I would appreciate any suggestions on making the above possible, or alternative setups that would help me achieve what I am looking for. My requirements are:

  • Openmediavault on the local server
  • Encrypted backups
  • Machines connected via VPN (tailscale was just so easy so I would prefer to continue using that, but I can be convinced otherwise)
  • koalaEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    The next TrueNAS Scale can do LXC containers using Incus. It’s similar to a VM, but more lightweight. You can create a container for any Linux distro and install Borg on that. With previous versions, I googled and found some instructions to run Borg in a container with SSH, or you could use a VM.

    Borg also supports dummy SSH targets, that TrueNAS can provide. Apparently, it’s lower performance-

    Why the choice of TrueNAS Scale? For just a Borg target, you could run any Linux distribution.

    • biomechLulu@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Thanks, I like the idea of running it in a container, I’ll have to look into that.

      That is a good question, haha. I wanted to try something other than openmediavault that had a GUI, was designed for NAS, and protects against disk failure (specifically with raidz). However, I think openmediavault actually supports zfs now which might be easier given that I am limited to openmediavault on my local Rpi 4 server.

      • koalaEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        I was going to mention ZFS, but I suspect Raspberries are too weak for ZFS?

        If you can use ZFS in both sides, send/receive is the bomb. (I use it for my backups.) However, I’m not sure how well encryption would work for your purpose. IIRC, last time I looked at it, if you wanted an encrypted replica, the source dataset should be encrypted, which did not make me happy.

        I’d love to work on making NASes “great” for non-technical people. I feel it’s key. Sending encrypted backups through peers is one of my personal obsessions. It should be possible for people to buy two NAS, then set up encrypted backups over the Internet with a simple procedure. I wish TrueNAS Scale enabled that- right now it’s the closest thing that exists, I think.

  • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    If both servers are running TrueNAS (scale or core) the best way to backup a TrueNAS system to another is by using zfs replication.

    https://www.truenas.com/docs/solutions/optimizations/disasterrecovery/

    Video to get you started. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gKZOAL7yeE

    You could also do the following.

    1. Setup site2site VPN connection of your choosing. IPSEC maybe.

    2. Temporally do the setup of the secondary TrueNAS at Site 1, unless you are sure your Site 2 is good.

    3. Configure the second TrueNAS to Pull data from the primary unit. FYI, pull configuration uses it’s own login credentials is a higher level of security.

    4. Migrate the second TrueNas unit to the site 2. This way you aren’t diagnosing both the Pull config and VPN settings at the same time.

    • biomechLulu@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Thanks but I’m limited to openmediavault on my Rpi locally. I wanted to try something a little more powerful like truenas to get more experience different linux-based systems. But given that I currently don’t have any major plans for the remote server other than storing backups I may just put a distro that I can install borg on like others have suggested.

      • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 hours ago

        No worries, also just to let you know. I have a TrueNAS and a unraid server.

        The TrueNAS server has a Unraid samba share mounted. Within TrueNAS you setup a pull task where it copies files from your remote system to keep the directory in sync. Any changes on my unraid samba share are backed up to my TrueNAS share on a predetermined schedule.

        You might want to look into the pull task on your TrueNAS which will be a lot easier then trying to push files from your OpenMediavault.

  • Dataprolet@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Maybe you can create an NFS share on your remote system and mount it on your local system, then create a Borg repo there as usual.