Installing BackupPC on CentOS

Article written around 2019: I, recently, was able to install BackupPC on a new installation of CentOS 7 so I was able to go through my notes and put them in a coherent form. Below is what I consider ‘coherent.’ 🙂 I decided to break this into 3 parts because, as I was writing, it became long. The three parts are:

BackupPC Installation
Configuration of Server
Adding Linux and Apple Hosts

BackupPC Installation

I disable selinux. If this isn’t something you want to do and you know how to configure BackupPC with selinux enabled, please post a note and I’ll make an addition to this list.

To disable selinux, edit the file: /etc/sysconfig/selinux

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values: 
# enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced. 
# permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing. 
# disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded. SELINUX=disabled # SELINUXTYPE= can take one of three values: 
# targeted - Targeted processes are protected, 
# minimum - Modification of targeted policy. Only selected processes are protected. 
# mls - Multi Level Security protection. SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Change the line that reads: SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=disabled

Restart the computer

Install epel-release, backuppc, and sendmail, if not already installed

yum install epel-release yum install backuppc sendmail

Add a BackupPC Admin user

From root, type: htpasswd /etc/BackupPC/apache.users <<admin Username>>

Example:

# htpasswd /etc/BackupPC/apache.users bpcadmin

When prompted, enter a password of your choice, twice

# htpasswd /etc/BackupPC/apache.users bpcadmin New password: Re-type new password: Adding password for user bpcadmin

If you already know which users that will need access to BackupPC, you can add users this same way now or come back at a later time

With the Backup Drive mounted, create the folders, and change the permissions to allow the backuppc user access

# mkdir /media/backups/BackupPC # mkdir /media/backups/BackupPC/pc # mkdir /media/backups/BackupPC/cpool # chown -R backuppc /media/backups/BackupPC/

Edit the BackupPC config file: /etc/BackupPC/config.pl

Around line 300, look for $Conf{TopDir} and add the path where the backups will be stored.

$Conf{TopDir} = '/media/backups/BackupPC/'; 
$Conf{ConfDir} = '/etc/BackupPC/'; 
$Conf{LogDir} = '/var/log/BackupPC'; 
$Conf{InstallDir} = '/usr/share/BackupPC'; 
$Conf{CgiDir} = '/usr/share/BackupPC/sbin/';

In the same file, scroll down further, around line 2030, and look for: $Conf{CgiAdminUsers}

Add the Admin user created above. This gives the Admin access to make changes via the Web Gui

$Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} = ''; 
$Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = 'bpcadmin';

Save the File

Give the backuppc user permission to run anywhere on server

Run command as root:

visudo

Look for “Allow root to run any commands anywhere”

Below the line: root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Add: backuppc ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere root ALL=(ALL) ALL backuppc ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

Save the file

Start the BackupPC service

# systemctl start backuppc.service

Helpful tip: If the service fails, run the following as root to view the errors

# sudo -u backuppc /usr/share/BackupPC/bin/BackupPC -d

If Successful, log in to website with Admin user

http://localhost/BackupPC

Helpful tip: The word, BackupPC, is case sensitive

Click ‘Edit Config’ and check the PingPath setting

If blank, change it to: /usr/bin/ping

Click ‘Email’ and check the SendmailPath setting

If blank, change it to /usr/sbin/sendmail