Compilation on Windows
TracNav
For Users
- Introduction
- Overview
- System Requirements
- Comparison With Other Systems
- Endorsements
Installation
Common Tasks
- Restoring Files
- Verify and Restore Whole Backups
- Checking Space Usage
- Managing Client Accounts
- Regular Maintenance
- Fixing Corruption on Server
- Recovering from Lost Keys
- Pull data from a USB hdd
- Recipies and HOWTOs
- Related Projects
For Developers
- Developers Documentation
- Source Code Repository
- Coding Style
- Current Development Progress
- Future Development Plans
- Betas and Release Candidates
Support
Nick Knight has ported Box Backup to Windows as a native application. Since 2005-12-23, this has been merged into the official source code trunk, and is available in the release version 0.10. See Installation for how to obtain it.
However, a number of bugs and limitations were discovered in that version, and Chris Wilson recommends that you use his unofficial build and tree, instead of the 0.10 release. The fixes in his tree are slowly being merged into the trunk, probably leading to a 0.11 release sometime in 2007 (unless we get to 0.20 first).
- The latest unofficial build is available on the Windows Client Releases page.
- The unofficial tree is in Subversion at http://www.boxbackup.org/svn/box/chris/general .
Compilation
You may not need or want to compile Box Backup for Windows yourself. There are precompiled binaries available on the Windows Client Releases page. Unless you want to develop or debug Box Backup yourself, we recommend that you use one of those binaries.
If you really do want to compile Box Backup on Windows you should expect problems, and we'd appreciate your help in fixing them.
There are a number of supported compilers - read the appropriate instructions for the compiler you wish to use:
Other compilers are untested but may work. Most compilers can emulate one (or both) of the above, however most compilers provide slightly different header files or C++ language features, so you may need to modify the source code. Please tell us about your experiences on the mailing list, and/or edit these pages to tell others how to do it.
Installation
Copy all the files to c:\Program Files\Box Backup, and create/customise the configuration file in that directory. You will need to generate the certificate and keys on a Unix box, unfortunately. Boxi will soon make this much easier.
You must manually create a subdirectory C:\Program Files\Box Backup\bbackupd for the daemon to create some temporary files (last_sync_start and the PID file). You must ensure that the user running Box Backup has permission to write to this directory. If you run Box Backup as a service, then normally this will be the LocalSystem user.
If you have done all the certificate stuff correctly your C:\Program Files\Box Backup\ directory will contain the four certificate related files (assuming you set up account 1):
- 1-cert.pem
- 1-key.pem
- serverCA.pem
- 1-FileEncKeys.raw
Windows Service
On Windows, Box Backup would normally be run as service, in which case it will be automatically started at boot time in the background. To install this, open a command prompt, and run:
"C:\Program Files\Box Backup\bbackupd.exe" -i
This should output Box Backup service installed. You can remove it again with the following command:
"C:\Program Files\Box Backup\bbackupd.exe" -r
The service will look for bbackupd.conf in C:\Program Files\Box Backup by default. If you want to place the configuration file somewhere else, you can specify its location on the command line:
"C:\Program Files\Box Backup\bbackupd.exe" -i "C:\Box\Conf\bbackupd.conf"
You cannot install the service twice. This may give you the infamous error 1078. Please remove the service before trying to add it again, for example if you change the location of the Box Backup directory.
If the service fails to start, it may be because the DataDirectory is not writable by the LocalSystem user (or whatever user you run the service under).
If you have any problems following these instructions, please sign up to the MailingLists and report them to us, or send an email to Chris Wilson. Thanks!
Upgrading
- Stop the old client service.
- Make a backup of your current installation (usually in C:\Program Files\Box Backup), especially the bbackupd.conf and FileEncKeys.raw files.
- Unzip the new zipfile.
- Copy all the contents (excluding bbackupd.conf) into the directory where the old client is stored.
- Start the service, check that it stays running.
You should not need to remove and reinstall the Box Backup service, unless you are upgrading from a very old installation. If the Box Backup service fails to start after the upgrade, or does not behave as expected, please try to remove and reinstall the service as follows:
- Remove the old service with "bbackupd.exe -r".
- Install it again with "bbackupd -i" (and the path to the configuration file, if not C:\Program Files\Box Backup\bbackupd.conf).
