Windows – Using Rsync to backup a Windows Share

BackupPC uses hard-links in its storage, so you're not going to be able to just share a folder on the Windows machine to mount on the Ubunut machine for BackupPC to write into.

I'd recommend either using rsync (http://rsync.samba.org/) or Unison (http://freshmeat.net/projects/unison) to synchronize the /var/lib/backuppc/pc/localhost directory to a remote directory on your Windows machine. You're going to lose the hardlinks when you do that, but at least you'll have the files off the box.

You are doing at least one thing wrong.

First of all you are using --fake-super on the wrong side of the connection. Let me quote the rsync man page.

The --fake-super option only affects the side where the option is used. To affect the remote side of a remote-shell connection, specify an rsync path:

rsync -av --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /src/ host:/dest/

What you are doing is running --fake-super on the side of the connection where you are already root anyway.

The part about "failed to write xattr user.rsync.%stat for" is because the file system used with --fake-super hasn't been mounted with the flag user_xattr. This mount option has to be in effect on the side of the connection where you are using --fake-super, which in your cause would be "remoteserver.com".

To summarize, these are the commands you should have been running:

# rsync -avz --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" /var/www/myfolder backupuser@remoteserver.com:/home/backups
# rsync -avz --rsync-path="rsync --fake-super" backupuser@remoteserver.com:/home/backups/myfolder /tmp

...with the mount option user_xattr in effect on remoteserver.com