How to setup Ubuntu as a backup server for my Windows computer?

I took my old computer (AMD 5600+, 2GB RAM, 880gt, 250GB SATA, etc) and decided to jump and try Ubuntu for the first time. I have very very little knowledge (Red Hat when I was younger) with Linux in general.

My main desktop is Windows 7 and my plan is to use the Ubuntu computer as a file server sort of speak. I want to be able to setup back up schedules from my Windows PC to the Ubuntu PC (plan on leaving this on 24/7 to double as a Seedbox)

How do I go on to doing this?

Solution 1:

You want to install and configure Samba. I will assume you are using Ubuntu Server 12.04. If you have a desktop installed there may be all kinds of GUI configuration tools you can use but let's keep this simple.

This should install Samba if you don't already have it:

sudo apt-get install samba

Now you should have the file /etc/samba/smb.conf so edit this and add these lines to the end:

[backup]
path = /home/username/backup
browsable =yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = no

Now read the new configuration by running this command:

sudo service smbd reload

Finally, make sure /home/username/backup exists and is readable and writeable by everyone:

mkdir /home/username/backup
chmod a+rwx /home/username/backup

You should now have a working share. If the IP address of your server is 192.168.0.2 you could visit \\192.168.0.2\backup from Explorer and see the directory and read and write files.

Note that there is no security here. Anyone on your LAN can access your files. But this should get you started.