Configure Syncrify Client (x64) on Linux

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I’ve already written up a how-to on the server portion of the Syncrify suite, so here’s the follow-up to that post regarding the client portion.

Before you get started, please note that these instructions assume that the user is ssh’d to the server. You will need X forwarding capability… if you ssh to the server using the following command, you’ll do just fine:

ssh -XC root@server

Step #1: Configure Java

Follow the instructions for Step #1: Configure Java, on the server how-to post.

Step #2: Download the Syncrify client for Linux

wget http://www.synametrics.com/files/Syncrify/SyncrifyClientJava.zip

Step #3: Unzip the archive and “install” the software package

unzip SyncrifyClientJava.zip
mkdir /opt/Syncrify
mkdir /var/log/syncrify
mv SyncrifyClient.jar /opt/Syncrify/
mv SyncrifyClient.sh /opt/Syncrify/

If your server does not have Xorg installed, you’ll need to install it:

apt-get install xorg

This will not make your server have a gui… you just need Xorg’s libraries in order to run the Syncrify client interface. I’m assuming you’re logged into the server via ssh, from a machine that has a gui (X server + desktop manager), and you’ve enabled X forwarding by using the -X command line argument. Any X session data will be forwarded through your ssh connection to your local X server. If your server has a gui (X server + desktop manager) then you can safely ignore this.

Step #4: Configure Syncrify scripts & crontab

Create a new file: /opt/Syncrify/Backup.sh and insert the following lines:

#!/bin/sh
java -jar /opt/Syncrify/SyncrifyClient.jar -console my_backup_profile.syncrify

Where my_backup_profile is the name of the profile you’ll create in step #5. Save and exit this file, then create a new file: /etc/cron.d/syncrify and insert the following lines:

#Run syncrify backup every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday @ 2100hrs
00      21      *       *       0,2,4,6         root    /opt/Syncrify/Backup.sh >> /var/log/syncrify/syncrify.log

Save and exit.

Change permissions:

chmod 0755 /opt/Syncrify/Backup.sh
chmod 0755 /opt/Syncrify/SyncrifyClient.sh
chmod 0644 /etc/cron.d/syncrify
chown root.root /etc/cron.d/syncrify
chown -R root.root /opt/Syncrify

Step #5: Configure a backup profile

Start the Syncrify Client:

cd /opt/Syncrify
./SyncrifyClient.sh

Be patient… after a few seconds the client will appear (Note: this will not work if Xorg is not installed as per step #3):

Syncrify Client (main)

Configuring individual backup profiles is beyond the scope of this document… if you’ve made it this far then you should be more than capable of configuring a backup profile :-)

Notes:

  • Be aware that Syncrify stores settings in ~/.syncrify. It’s likely that you’ll never need to mess with anything in that directory, but you should at least know that it exists.
  • Make sure that when you create a new backup profile (File -> Add Profile…) that you give it the same name that was specified in the line #2 of /opt/Syncrify/Backup.sh. In the example contained within this post, the backup profile is named my_backup_profile and the settings for this profile are stored in ~/.syncrify/my_backup_profile.syncrify.