Here are our plans. What else do you want to be added?

It’s not a secret, despite the progress we’ve made so far, our Backup for Linux still lacks some important features - mostly because it is relatively young. I thought it’s time we shed some light on our plans and get some feedback to help us set further priorities.

Long story short, the main big features we are planning to add in the nearest future are:

  • Block level backup for files
  • Proper support for SMB/CIFS network shares
  • Proper support for SFTP/SSHFS network shares
  • Option to use backup date for retention (as opposed to using modification date)
    And a number of minor improvements along with that.

The next set of features includes:

  • File name encryption
  • Detailed report
  • Schedule - Stop plan after X amount of time
    And another number of minor improvements.

Image Based Backup is a strategic long term feature that is on our roadmap, we are working on it for some time now. As soon as we sort of complete the must-haves for File Backup we will be able to dedicate more resources to Image Based Backup.

The question to you, dear customers, is - what else you want us to add to our Backup for Linux?
The more details the better, e.g. specify how important it is for you, and how many machines could benefit from it.

Thanks for the insights Caleb, I really appreciate it. I would personally like to see:

  • more rebranding (i.e. add logo to client screen, left side of top header, next to the buttons)
  • showing storage account usage statistics/package details on home screen + ability to return to home screen via “home button”
  • localisation support (to match locale of desktop of customer)
  • ability to customize the meta information of the package in rebranding (title + description at least)
  • filename encryption (you already mentioned it)
  • image based backup (you already mentioned it)

Fellow MBS users, please comment/rate if you share these!

[reply=“Martijn V;534”], thanks, that’s some food for thought. We are looking into things like how much information we show and what can be rebranded - but it’s always nice to get feedback and details.

if by “image based backup” you main backup up the OS than +1 this would be a killer feature.at the moment I am using “timeshift” for that.
+1 for better backup reporting

[reply=“Krasi;681”] thanks for the feedback!

A bare metal backup option would be great. Particularly if there was the option of running a bare metal to local storage and separately have the really critical data files go to the cloud storage if you don’t want to pay for the OS storage in the cloud.

[reply=“Joe Matuscak;744”], thanks for your feedback.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a strategic feature we are working on. It requires quite an amount of work so it will take us time to implement it - but at some point we will definitely add bare metal backup (in our terms, Image Based Backup).

Can we get a build packaged for Raspberry Pi? I want to back up the contents of my RPi’s external SSD to cloud storage.

[reply=“Steven Rosenthal;812”] Hi. We don’t have it on our roadmap at the moment.

Thanks for the reply. I’ve since discovered ‘gsutil rsync’ so I think I’ll be able to make do with that.

When will the next version be released?
Only thing preventing me buying the licence at the moment is currently missing file name encryption.
If I purchase now, can I use the key on the upcoming version that has this feature included?

[reply=“maq;976”] Your license will be valid for all future versions. The filename encryption is planned for Q4 2018. I have added your request to our existing requirement. Thanks for your interest in our product and you are welcome to purchase the license!

CBT for Hyper-V and when possible other types of backups, it will save you to do a new full back-up.

[reply=“QiQQ;995”] Hi. We do have this planned for the future, although at this point it is too early to set an ETA. Thanks for your suggestion!

[reply=“Caleb;1001”] No problem, good to know that it is in the planning.

Any update on file name encryption for Linux? The comment above indicates it was planned for Q4’18, but I didn’t see anything about it in the recent release notes.

[reply=“Michael;2324”] unfortunately, there’s been a change of plans. Currently our Backup for Windows team is preparing to launch a huge revamp to their Archive Mode backup, after that we’ll re-use that in Backup for Linux. Since the backups are basically one archive - no information can possibly be collected from file names.
Yes, it will take longer than if we had implemented what we have for file name encryption in Backup for Windows. That is a development decision we’ve made. Apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused.

Thanks Gleb for the update. Any idea when that new capability would be available? It is a quarter push or something longer?

[reply=“Michael;2330”] I guess it should be available Q3 or Q4 this year - but that is only a guess just yet, it’s too early to bring any serious estimations.

I would love to see an official docker image. I am finding it is really easy to manage and upgrade docker containers. They also run well even in small servers like my Intel NUC which currently running four, soon to be five containers.