CrashPlan Pro

This documentation is meant for the people who are involved in the CCBB Pilot of the CrashPlan Pro Backup Server which is being deployed by the College of Natural Sciences IT Team.

CrashPlan Pro (hereafter CPP) is back up software provided by Code 42 software. CPP starts by creating a snapshot of your users folder on your Mac or PC. Once it has created the snapshot, it will periodically scan your computer for changed files. It then examines these files to determine the specific parts that have changed, and syncs those changes over to the CPP server. This means that once the first backup is done, you likely will not even notice the backups up being performed. If you do, then you can always pause it for 24 hours. Because the amount of data transferred is normally so small, CPP is able to backup using any network connection. Once a CPP enabled system is connected to any type of network, it will start its periodic backups. This makes it ideal for laptops taken away from CCBB for long periods of time. There is also a web interface which you use to monitor backups, configure exclusions, and download files.

If you have been able told that you are in the pilot program start by visiting the CNS Password Server . Log in to this server using your UTEID, and UTEID password. You will then be able to create a password for the CPP server using the provided form. You would also log back into the CNS Password Server anytime that you have forgotten your CNS password. It is also recommend that you store your password, and any other passwords which you want to be kept secure in the Information Security Office's Stache server. For more information about Stache, please review its documentation .

Once your CNS account it set up, please bring your laptop to PAT 141 so we can install the client. At the same time, you will be given an overview of monitoring backups with the client. We can also at look the CPP website which you can use to customize various aspects of your backups. For example, if you keep data outside of your users folder, then you might want to add that into the backup. Alternatively, you might want to exclude files on your Desktop - say the folder full of personal music.

Some caveats....

This is not a drop box service. Using the web interface you can download files to use on other computers. However, if you change them you need to get the changed file back onto your laptop to be backed up.
The above restriction means that this is not a general file sharing mechanism. The linkeme: CCBB file server should be used for this. This is definitely true of large data sets.

FAQS

Please ask questions.