Powershell

I recently went about setting up a home server to replace a failed NAS appliance. This time, instead of proprietary software, I used Debian Linux and configured everything myself. Because it is storing a bunch of important files, an automated online backup system was an important part of the new build.

I had previously used Arq for backing up our home network. It is awfully powerful and easy to use. I especially appreciate that it lets you run backups to numerous cloud providers. Unfortunately, it only runs on Windows and Mac. I could keep using it by letting my main Windows computer back up the contents (by reading from a shared drive), but something running on the Linux server itself would be much better.

For various reasons, I’ve had to set up new computers a few times lately. This is still a time-consuming task that I try to avoid, but as I’ve been automating more and more of the process, it’s getting faster and more consistent. This post is essentially a note to my future self, or any colleagues that want to use this as their baseline for their own setups.

Many of the tools I use are free and open source, but some of them are not. Make sure to review and purchase licences where you need to. I’ve used most of these things fairly heavily, and am comfortable recommending all of them. It’s also easy to remove anything you don’t want to use.