Explanation about the "GUI" comment above -> the Backblaze backup client was simultaneously written from the ground up compiling on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. The same tree and the same source compiles on all three on EVERY SVN CHECKIN. There is one exception, which is the GUI is an extremely simple stand alone process entirely natively written to match the host OS. On Mac OS it is in Objective C in the beautiful Apple GUI layout editor, on Windows we use Visual Studio and C++ and Win32. The firm rule is these GUIs are ONLY allowed to edit one or two simple XML files, and all the real encryption, compression, transmission is done by other cross platform processes. On Linux we configure the XML file with "vi". :-) The X-Windows GUI has not even been started.
XML is a pain, but holding up release due to lack of a gui is sorta silly. Plus I imagine, like me, most multi-server users would be rolling out a standard xml config anyway without more than a simple string substitution on a per server basis.
In fact, the only GUI I have running is on my desktop.
> crontab -l
0 1 * * * sed -E -i .bak 's/net_throttle="[0-9]+"/net_throttle="100"/' /Library/Backblaze/bzdata/bzinfo.xml
0 10 * * * sed -E -i .bak 's/net_throttle="[0-9]+"/net_throttle="40"/' /Library/Backblaze/bzdata/bzinfo.xmlI've been looking for an off-site backup solution for a (nerdy and technically competent) home user for years, and yours is the only one that I could afford (poor recent BA here).
Please?! I would pay $10 a month (probably more, really) for that. Even if you don't want to support it, could you do it just for me? It'll be our little secret!
Backblaze is designed to be used with absolutely no configuration (for many users they have no idea where their Outlook.pst file is and we don't think they should have to know), and the only way we could figure out how to make this work was to backup EVERYTHING on your system unless you explicitly exclude it. So bzinfo.xml is basically a flat list of excluded folders you do not want backed up. There is also a throttle in there if you don't want Backblaze to utterly destroy your network uplink, and a few other small settings. It's pretty straightforward.
With that said, we really pride ourselves on easy to use software, so it goes against everything in our DNA to release software with NO GUI at all, but maybe we'll give that a serious thought. If you are using Linux, you probably aren't the average Mom & Pop user. :-)
Call it alpha, see how much demand there is, and the extra money you bring in might be the motivation to finish up the pretty. :)
I just want to join others asking here for a Linux version. Please do release whatever you have. And actually I would prefer a command line tool, so I can use it in my cron.
Similarly, the CrashPlan service itself is written in Java and for binary compatibility, only relies on a little binary library loaded via JNI to accommodate the differences between Linux and Solaris, not to mention Windows and Mac. It doesn't even support Nexenta (OpenSolaris kernel + Debian userland) directly out of the box, but I was able to hand-combine the bits from Linux and Solaris installs to get something working: the moral being, for OSes targeted towards more technically adept users, you may not need as much work as you think, if your app is self-contained enough.
PS: I'm already one of your costumers and I'd love to be able to use your service in my linux machines.