***The Official Windows Home Server 2011 Thread***

[paradisiac]

ok im lost. I have added a folder but I just get this :

 

[ChileanLlama]

Right Click the Live Mesh icon in the notification area, Open Live Mesh.

You'll see the folders you've created and a little "expand" arrow to the left. You should see a "Shared with:" then hyperlink to change it via a web interface.

On the right you'll also see "Select Devices" which allows you to choose which of your devices the folder syncs on, each device must have Live Mesh installed.

When your family member receives the invitation they'll also need to install Live Mesh and choose the folder on their hard disk to sync to.

[edit: Cross posted with 81 - See #83]

 

[ChileanLlama]

Ok, where it says "Just me" click it, in the webpage that comes up, put in the family member's email address you want to share it with.

They'll then have to accept, install Live Mesh, and choose which folder H:\FTP\Edd syncs with on their machine (e.g. they could sync it to C:\users\Edd\Documents).

This is part of the reason why I did the VPN, I talked them through installing the VPN, then I could configure everything else on their machine through RDP, and have my Server running all the scripts to pull their data in on a schedule to me.

 

[paradisiac]

how do I send the invitation?

 

[paradisiac]

ok, so I will install mesh on my laptop and then I just sign is as me and it should then show up on the server my pc?

it worked

 

[ChileanLlama]

Kinda, in the pic you posted on the laptop you'll see the folder on the left, but it won't be synced to the laptop by default. So you'll have to choose which folder on the laptop you want to point it to.

This is pretty much what your family will see when they get the invite and have installed Mesh... but see the warning in post #80 and test it out before doing it with real data.

 

[paradisiac]

Kinda, in the pic you posted on the laptop you'll see the folder on the left, but it won't be synced to the laptop by default. So you'll have to choose which folder on the laptop you want to point it to.

This is pretty much what your family will see when they get the invite and have installed Mesh... but see the warning in post #80 and test it out before doing it with real data.

I will not want access to their drives, they just need access to their folder on the server (which is empty as I haven't found a good way of making it work)

 

[paradisiac]

oh I now see the issue here. if I delete it from 1 machine, it deletes it from both

 

[paradisiac]

so now I need a sync between their mesh folder on the server and a perminant folder. so mesh will do the upload, it will then go from the mesh folder say 'temp' to a then fixed folder say 'backup' so they can then delete it from their pc (or move it) and it will still be in the 'backup' folder.

 

[ChileanLlama]

oh I now see the issue here. if I delete it from 1 machine, it deletes it from both

Exactly!

So what you need to make sure is if you create the Mesh Folder - and it's empty - and they Sync it to say their Document folder, will the initial propogation delete all their files or will it sync all their files to your mesh folder on the server.

If it does that then I'd recommend they set the mesh folder up on their end first and then invite you.

But test both scenarios - I hate to see people losing data!

 

[paradisiac]

Exactly!

So what you need to make sure is if you create the Mesh Folder - and it's empty - and they Sync it to say their Document folder, will the initial propogation delete all their files or will it sync all their files to your mesh folder on the server.

If it does that then I'd recommend they set the mesh folder up on their end first and then invite you.

But test both scenarios - I hate to see people losing data!

mesh created a folder on my laptop for me. so that is not an issue. but my last post is the thing. I will need to do an automated sync to a permanent folder in the server.

 

[ChileanLlama]

so now I need a sync between their mesh folder on the server and a perminant folder. so mesh will do the upload, it will then go from the mesh folder say 'temp' to a then fixed folder say 'backup' so they can then delete it from their pc (or move it) and it will still be in the 'backup' folder.

Not quite.

Have a think about where the data is located on their PC, I take it they won't be too expert so you'll basically be looking at two options:

Option 1

Sync their system folders directly to your server (e.g. C:\Users\Username\Documents on their end to z:\Server folders\Backup - Username\Documents on your end.

That will give you a nice clean 1:1 relationship between their folders and your folders. It will just mean more Mesh folders for each user.

----
Option 2

Get them to create a backup folder e.g. C:\Users\Username\Mesh Backup\
They will then manually put anything they want to backup into the Mesh Backup folder and that will sync to z:\Server Folders\Backup - Username\ on your server.

---

I'd prefer Option 1 if you can get it working, it doesn't rely on your family having to remember to put files in a separate folder on a regular basis. But will probably mean more data initially, but can you do an initial local upload say from USB disk etc.

 

[paradisiac]

option 2 is not viable, and I can see option 1 not being viable either.

option 1 -
their pc crashes and a fresh install of windows is needed, therefore the folders I synced on their machine will now be empty, so install mesh and BANG the server synced folders are now empty

option 2 -
they have a 'backup' folder which is synced. this means they will need to keep 2 copies of the files on their pc, because as soon as they delete the backup (once synced) it will delete it from the server.

so I propose option 3
there is a 'temp' sync folder on the server and their pc and a 'backup' folder on just the server. then a script/program or whatever to automatically cut+paste from 'temp' to 'backup'. therefore they will only need to keep the one copy on their machine and if their machine fails I will have a permanent backup, which they can access through remote web connect to re-download.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Option 1 - No if the PC crashes, and you reinstall Mesh it will effectively be a new machine with no relationship. Once you establish the relationship it will then sync everything back down to their "new" PC from your server.

Option 2 - Correct.

Option 3 - That would work, but you'd need to ensure you controlled the "temp" sync delete, and told them not to delete anything to make sure the script had run. It'd also allow you to keep an archive. But rather than give them RWA to recover, you could arrange to put the backup(s) back in the "temp" folder for them to collect.

But...if it's a new backup each time, won't it be a lot of data to transfer regularly?

 

[paradisiac]

Option 1 - No if the PC crashes, and you reinstall Mesh it will effectively be a new machine with no relationship. Once you establish the relationship it will then sync everything back down to their "new" PC from your server.

Option 2 - Correct.

Option 3 - That would work, but you'd need to ensure you controlled the "temp" sync delete, and told them not to delete anything to make sure the script had run. It'd also allow you to keep an archive. But rather than give them RWA to recover, you could arrange to put the backup(s) back in the "temp" folder for them to collect.

But...if it's a new backup each time, won't it be a lot of data to transfer regularly?

the first backup would be big, but they would just copy any of their new stuff to the temp folder to upload it, so would only be small sync after the initial sync.
yeh they would need to leave it in the folder, which is why I thought a cut+paste rather than copy+paste command would be better, as it would automatically remove it from the temp file on their pc when it cut+paste it server end.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Cool it should work then, and thinking about it Option 1 wouldn't allow recovery from accidental deletions whereas Option 3 would.

Still prefer Option 1 though as it's seamless to the user.

I'd still seriously consider VPN and a sync program/script on your server to pull the data to a backup folder. Seamless to the user, can be kept as a separate backup as per option 3, and no risk of deletions going in the wrong direction. I backup two remote family WHS's to my servers on a weekly basis this way.

You'd just need to install a VPN client, setup the VPN network and have credentials between the server and family PC's.

 

[paradisiac]

Cool it should work then, and thinking about it Option 1 wouldn't allow recovery from accidental deletions whereas Option 3 would.

Still prefer Option 1 though as it's seamless to the user.

I'd still seriously consider VPN and a sync program/script on your server to pull the data to a backup folder. Seamless to the user, can be kept as a separate backup as per option 3, and no risk of deletions going in the wrong direction. I backup two remote family WHS's to my servers on a weekly basis this way.

You'd just need to install a VPN client, setup the VPN network and have credentials between the server and family PC's.

im trying to avoid too much additional software as my family live too far away for me to pop around and set it up, and then sort out their problems, but mesh seems pretty simple from their end.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Fair enough, but I'd recommend you try Hamachi. It's as easy to setup from their perspective - just install a client on their machine and then they will be attached to your network.

Then they could just access your shares directly \\server\backup - name\ using the credentials you provide them and copy their files into the folder as and when they needed to

 

[paradisiac]

Fair enough, but I'd recommend you try Hamachi. It's as easy to setup from their perspective - just install a client on their machine and then they will be attached to your network.

Then they could just access your shares directly \\server\backup - name\ using the credentials you provide them and copy their files into the folder as and when they needed to

can they accidently delete something?

 

[ChileanLlama]

Yep they could, because you'd have to give them read/write access to the share. If you wanted to move it out of sight then you're back to the script to move it from one share on the server to another restricted share, but you could still give them read only access so they could still view their backups.

Anyway, give it a go, just for yourself to see how it works - it's free for 5 PC's and is dead easy to setup. You might find it's better for what you want, but both will work.