[Box Backup] Win32 port (was: BoxBackup Server Side Management Specs (Draft0.01))

[Chris Wilson]

Hi Ben and others,

> > So far I have not needed to change any code, and I hope that I can
> > maintain the Windows GUI semi-independently, only relying on some
> > header files from Box.
> 
> Sounds good. Are you talking to the server directly, or just writing 
> .conf files and using bbackupquery?

My plan is for a very real-time, interactive client. Right now I'm talking
to the server, replacing and supplementing bbackupquery/bbackupd, in order
to learn how Box works.

However, my longer-term plan is to communicate with bbackupd, both by
modifying its config file, and using its existing socket, so that it
becomes possible to see what the daemon is doing in real time (e.g. why
hasn't it backed up File X) along with live and permanent reconfiguration.

These protocol extensions will undoubledly require major changes to 
bbackupd, and at that point I will be sure to make those changes against 
CVS, in order to make them easier for you in integrate (hopefully you will 
not object on principle to integrating them).

> I shall add them in.

Sorry, I was premature in suggesting this. They already appear to be in 
notes/windows_porting.txt (unless you have updated them since writing that 
file, which was not apparent to me).

> I can't see why you'd want to, given that Windows would give you 
> absolutely no advantage and cost money.

I can see that some Windows-only-lusers might prefer to stick with the 
devil they know, but personally I'd prefer to run the server on an OS 
which I trust :-). So I will not be investing any time in developing a 
Windows server in the near future.

> Absolutely no need for this. If you look in the .conf file, you might 
> get a section like this:

OK, I see what you're getting at. But this still doesn't solve the problem 
for removable media. Perhaps in that case, a tool which can modify 
bbackupd.conf to create/remove stanzas for certain media, identified by 
GUID, could be useful?

> There is a separate object which does permissions and security info. 
> This just needs to be extended.

Can you give me any more information on this, or point me to the relevant 
parts of the Fine Manual? :-)

> The streams that I were talking about contain bits of information about 
> the source of the file. So if it was downloaded from the internet, it 
> can be marked as suspicious, and the user gets a warning when they 
> execute it.

Is this a Windows XP SP2-specific behaviour? If so, then it seems strange 
to implement support for it in BoxBackup, but if there is a genuine need, 
and it doesn't cause problems with restoration, then I'll consider it 
carefully.

> Yes. I'd like to get Mac OS X supported properly, for a start! (seeing 
> as it's my primary platform and everything)

Me too, as I think streams would be useful for the above :-) But please 
don't regard this as serious pressure (yet), since I have a lot of work to 
do on the GUI first.

> > Please do, I would be very interested to hear from anyone else who is
> > working on Win32 support or a GUI, especially if they wish to 
> > collaborate,
> > but at least to avoid duplication of effort.
> 
> This does need coordination. I could get another mailing list started 
> if that would help?

I would be interested to hear other list members' views on this. I have a
slight preference for keeping the discussion on this list, in order to
involve the largest number of people, but if the die-hard Unix people
object to this, then a new list would be much better than nothing :-)

Cheers, Chris.
-- 
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 / __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson <0000 at qwirx.com> - Cambs UK |
/ (_/ ,\/ _/ /_ \ | Security/C/C++/Java/Perl/SQL/HTML Developer |
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