Samba Backup: Create and store backups on a Samba share

[CaptTom (Tom)]

It could be I who misunderstands. I thought the snapshot is created on the HA system and copied to the external SMB device (like a NAS.)

I was just wondering whether there was a way to select where on the local (HA) system to store it, OR to create it directly on the NAS.

[tom_l]

@CaptTom

I thought the snapshot is created on the HA system and copied to the external SMB device (like a NAS.)

Yes. That’s how it works.

@CaptTom

I was just wondering whether there was a way to select where on the local (HA) system to store it, OR to create it directly on the NAS.

No. That is not possible.

[pepe59]

I guess I understand. I have it set so that I leave the latest 1 image in HA (snapshots) and every day I send the image to a remote smb server. So I have 7 images stored for a whole week.

[Groto]

I have the same question as others. Since the backup filenames are not identifiable, how do I know which one I want to restore to? Great addon, but this is something that is missing in my opinion.

[tom_l]

Look at the file creation date.

[ktownsend-personal (Keith)]

There is a json file in the archive with the backup name. I have some bash code to extract the name if you are interested.

[Groto]

Thanks I was thinking about this more and realized I could always copy the backups back into home assistant and then the names would show up in the UI… then I would be able to pick the one I want to restore.

[CaptTom (Tom)]

@CaptTom

I was just wondering whether there was a way to select where on the local (HA) system to store it, OR to create it directly on the NAS.

@tom_l

No. That is not possible.

Backing up a little, one thing I was hoping to accomplish was this:

@CaptTom

…if we’re using this add-on then we’re probably also using the Samba Share add-on, and accessing the HA “config” share from a Windows machine. Wouldn’t it be handy to have the backup folder in that share? With the default location we have to SSH in and use command-line to view the backup folder.

I just realized there’s another way to accomplish this. The snapshot isn’t in the “config” share, which would be very convenient (assuming we’re in there poking around a lot anyway.)

But it is in a share called (duh) “backup.” No need to SSH in and use command-line to view it.

Since I always connect to the config share, I’d sort of forgotten there are others.

[swa72]

Cool add-on. Plugged an old USB stick into my Fritz Box and it worked right out of the box. My config …

host: 192.168.178.1
share: FRITZ.NAS
target_dir: CCCOMA_X64F\ha
username: xxx
password: xxx
keep_local: all
keep_remote: all
trigger_time: '00:00'
trigger_days:
  - Mon
  - Tue
  - Wed
  - Thu
  - Fri
  - Sat
  - Sun
exclude_addons: []
exclude_folders: []
backup_name: '{type} Snapshot {version} {date}'

Note that CCCOMA_X64F is the name of the USB stick and username/password are credentials I set in [System > FRITZ!Box-Benutzer > Benutzer]

-Stefan

[WeatherWitch]

Hi,

Just installed add-on and working great, but can only get it to do partial backups.
Is my config wrong?

host: 192.168.0.xx
share: Backups
target_dir: autobackup
username: xxx
password: xxx
keep_local: '5'
keep_remote: '20'
trigger_time: '04:00'
trigger_days:
  - Mon
  - Tue
  - Wed
  - Thu
  - Fri
  - Sat
  - Sun
exclude_addons:
  - core_ssh
  - core_duckdns
exclude_folders:
  - ssl
type: Full
backup_name: '{type} Snapshot (Samba Backup) {date}'

Thanks in advance.

Kind Regards,

Mark

[WeatherWitch]

…Ignore that.
Changed the config to

host: 192.168.0.xx
share: Backups
target_dir: autobackup
username: xxx
password: xxx
keep_local: '5'
keep_remote: '20'
trigger_time: '04:00'
trigger_days:
  - Mon
  - Tue
  - Wed
  - Thu
  - Fri
  - Sat
  - Sun
exclude_addons: []
exclude_folders: []
type: Full
backup_name: '{type} Snapshot (Samba Backup) {date}'

And all working fine.

Thanks for the really useful add on.

[CO_4X4 (Colorado Four Wheeler)]

I cannot get this to work, but my setup may be different or unsupported. I’m backing up to a Mac running SMB (I can access via any windows computer) and despite the fact that my username and password are correct I still get an error when I try to run the backup:

[10:29:16] DEBUG: PING 10.1.200.2 (10.1.200.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.1.200.2: seq=0 ttl=63 time=0.816 ms
64 bytes from 10.1.200.2: seq=1 ttl=63 time=0.636 ms
64 bytes from 10.1.200.2: seq=2 ttl=63 time=0.622 ms
64 bytes from 10.1.200.2: seq=3 ttl=63 time=0.603 ms
--- 10.1.200.2 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.603/0.669/0.816 ms
[10:29:16] WARNING: session setup failed: NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
[10:29:16] FATAL: Cannot access share. Login failed. Please check your credentials.

To try to debug this I opened an SSH to my HASS system and could not execute the SMB client, so I’m not sure if perhaps that is the problem or what:

~ $ smbclient
-bash: smbclient: command not found

I saw above in another reply that smbclient may not be on the HASS system but is in your package, so I tried to find it and got nothing:

find / smbclient
find: smbclient: No such file or directory

My config:

host: 10.1.200.2
share: home_assistant
target_dir: ''
username: myname
password: mypass
keep_local: '5'
keep_remote: '20'
trigger_time: '01:00'
trigger_days:
  - Mon
  - Tue
  - Wed
  - Thu
  - Fri
  - Sat
  - Sun
exclude_addons: []
exclude_folders: []
backup_name: '{type} Home Assistant Snapshot (Samba Backup) {date}'
log_level: debug

[quizzical]

Very grateful for this excellent add-on, thanks so much!

Small tip in case anyone faces the same issue I had:
If your samba_backup sensor gives failed as a status and the logs in the add-on look something like this:

date: invalid date 'A 4915200 Wed Nov 11 21:51:39 2020'
date: invalid date 'A 4505600 Tue Nov 10 22:03:36 2020'
[23:46:08] INFO: Deleting  on share
[23:46:08] WARNING: del <filename>
[23:46:08] INFO: Deleting  on share
[23:46:09] WARNING: del <filename>

Then in reality your backup probably went just fine but it just had some problems with managing older snapshots on your backup Samba location.
I had at one point renamed 2 snapshots on that folder. When I deleted those snapshots, the samba backup addon stopped producing errors and the sensor gave succeeded as a result.

[chpego]

@CO_4X4

target_dir: ''

Could you try with a target dir ?

[ijdod]

Addon works as expected for me, which is good because I always forget to make a snapshot before breaking changes :D.

The only feature lacking is using the description in the filename. There’s a workaround (file timestamp), but synchronisation between the files on the share and the snapshots would be very nice.

[CO_4X4 (Colorado Four Wheeler)]

That didn’t make any difference, same error. I wasn’t certain it would change anything since the failure is NT_STATUS_LOGON rather than folder not found or something similar.

[duncan86 (Duncan Bloom)]

Isnt it a partial backup because you exclude addons and folders?

[WeatherWitch]

Yep, absolutley correct. As I said previously, all working fine now.

[DinoHome (Greg Hansen)]

Hello and thanks for reading this in advance. I have tried many different ways, but I am still at a loss for my specific situation, so I thought I would post here:

I have installed the add-on and all seems to work just fine for Windows being able to see the HA drive using Samba Backup.

My problem is when I try to use automate the configuration:

workgroup: WORKGROUP
username: XXXXX
password: XXXXX
interface: eth0
allow_hosts:
-10.0.0.0/8
-172.16.0.0/12
-192.168.0.0/16
-‘fe80::/10’
veto_files:
-._*
-.DS_Store
-Thumbs.db
-icon?
-.Trashes
compatibility_mode: false
host: 192.168.1.14
share: homes
target_dir: HABackups
keep_local: all
keep_remote: all
trigger_time: ‘05:07’
trigger_days:
-Mon
-Tue
-Wed
-Thu
-Fri
-Sat
-Sun
exclude_addons: []
exclude_folders: []

I get errors no errors in the Samba Backup addon, but I do get them in my Supervisor HA log:

INFO (MainThread) [supervisor.api.proxy] WebSocket access from a0d7b954_nodered
INFO (MainThread) [supervisor.api.proxy] Home Assistant WebSocket API request running
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options host
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options share
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options target_dir
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options keep_local
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options keep_remote
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options trigger_time
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options trigger_days
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options exclude_addons
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options exclude_folders
INFO (SyncWorker_1) [supervisor.docker.interface] Stopping addon_core_samba application
INFO (SyncWorker_1) [supervisor.docker.interface] Cleaning addon_core_samba application
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options host
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options share
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options target_dir
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options keep_local
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options keep_remote
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options trigger_time
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options trigger_days
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options exclude_addons
WARNING (MainThread) [supervisor.addons.validate] Unknown options exclude_folders
INFO (SyncWorker_6) [supervisor.docker.addon] Starting Docker add-on homeassistant/aarch64-addon-samba with version 9.3.0

And I don’t seem to be able to automate the snapshots backups successfully, which I assume is due to the above errors. It seems like everything below and including “host” in my configuration is incorrect.

If anyone is able to point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

[randytsuch (Randy T)]

Wanted to say thanks for this add-on

I installed and setup last night. Overnight it ran, and there was a new backup for me this morning.

My NAS is a USB drive attached to my Netgear router, configured using their readyshare setup.

My configuration setup was
host: 192.168.xxx.xxx
share: USB_Storage
target_dir: img

where img is a directory in the share named USB_Storage.
Took me a few attempts to figure it out, but the log output tells you if there is a problem, and after I used the above it worked great.

Randy