Setup Your Own S3 Bucket

Setting up a bucket for offsite backups with BinaryLane requires an existing Amazon S3 account. If you don't yet have an Amazon S3 account you can sign up here.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Configure your offsite backups (AWS / S3 Setup)
• Accessing the files in your backup
  
  

Configure your offsite backups (AWS / S3 Setup)

To allow BinaryLane to upload a copies of your backup to your S3 account, we require a new bucket with a bucket policy applied. To set this up please take the following actions:

1. Log into the AWS S3 management console.
   
   
2. Ensure that you're in the region ap-southeast-2 (Asia Pacific (Sydney)):
   
   
3. Click on the "Create Bucket" button:
   
   
4. Enter a globally unique bucket name:
   
   
5. Skip the other options, scroll down, and select "Create Bucket":
   
   
6. In the bucket list, click on your new S3 bucket's name:
   
   

   

   
   

7. Select 'Permissions', then scroll down to the `Bucket Policy` section:
   
   
   

8. Select the "Edit" button:
   
   
   

9. Enter the following bucket policy configuration template into the policy editor (Note: You will need to replace the [[bucketname]] parts with your actual S3 bucket name):
   
   

   {
     "Version": "2012-10-17",
     "Id": "backuppolicy.binarylane.com.au",
     "Statement": [
       {
         "Sid": "AllowBackups",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
           "CanonicalUser": "a56b711c5acdeb80d7f113fe028cb65ab9eff594de5a8b87741413cd18363017"
         },
         "Action": [
           "s3:PutObject",
           "s3:DeleteObject"
         ],
         "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::[[bucketname]]/*"
       },
       {
         "Sid": "AllowListing",
         "Effect": "Allow",
         "Principal": {
           "CanonicalUser": "a56b711c5acdeb80d7f113fe028cb65ab9eff594de5a8b87741413cd18363017"
         },
         "Action": "s3:ListBucket",
         "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::[[bucketname]]"
       }
     ]
   }

   
   Since we're using the bucket name `backup-bucket.example.com`, here is what this should look like:
   
   
   

10. Once you've done detailing and editing the bucket policy, select "Save Changes":
    
    
11. Once you've set up your new bucket, head to the mPanel and navigate to your server's "Snapshots, Backups & ISO Management" page:
    
    
    1. Log into your BinaryLane account and navigate to your server from your services list:
       
       
    2. Select the settings icon (⚙️) next to your server's name, then select the ` - ` option:
       
       
    3. Select the 'Settings' tab:
       
       
    4. Enable the 'Off-site Backups' option, and enter the bucket name of your S3 bucket within the 'Amazon S3 bucket' field:
       
       
    5. Click 'Save Settings' to finalise the changes.

AWS bucket settings can take some time to have effect. Binary Lane will send you an email in a couple of hours if it still can't access your bucket.

Accessing the files in your backup

To use Windows to access the files from within your backup, you will first need to download the following free tools:

• OSFMount - attaches a backup to a drive letter.
• qpress - decompress the backup file.
• For a linux vps: Ext2Fsd - read linux filesystem from windows.
  
  

If you are restoring a Linux backup then please follow the following steps otherwise jump straight to step 1.

For Linux backups you will need to have installed Ext2Fsd to allow windows to understand the Linux filesystem format.

• Download and launch the Ext2Fsd installer.
• On the "Select Additional Tasks" step of the installer, check "Make Ext2Fsd automatically started when system boots"
• On the last step of the installer uncheck "Start Ext2 Volume Manager.." since we will be using a different tool for that process.
• Reboot your computer and then follow the steps below to access your backup files.

1. Create a backup folder

Create a folder on your system in which to work from

2. Download your backup from S3

Log into the AWS S3 management console locate the backup you wish to download from your bucket. Right click on the backup and select "Download". Follow the instructions to download the backup.

3. Move or copy your backup and qpress into the backup folder you created

To make the next steps easier, it is best to have qpress.exe and the downloaded backup saved in the backup folder you created.

4. Open a cmd.exe window in your backup folder

You can open a cmd window by right clicking while holding down the shift key, in an empty space within the folder and selecting "open command window here" (make sure no files are highlighted).

5. Create a restored folder by typing "mkdir restored" and pressing enter

This is the folder in which we will place the decompressed backup.

6. Extract the backup into the restored folder.

Type "qpress64.exe -dv <backupfilename.qp> .\restored" without the quotes and press enter. Ensure you have replaced the <backupfilename.qp> with the name of your backup file (see above image).

Hint: Pressing the tab key while typing your backup file name will try and guess the filename for you, if it gets it wrong just keep pressing tab until it gets it right.

When the extraction is complete, close the command window or type "exit" and press enter.

7. Install OSFMount

Download and launch the OSFMount installer. You shouldn't need to change any options.

If gives an error about computer type, download the other installer from the website (ie 64bit installer if you downloaded the 32bit installer earlier).

8. Run the OSFMount tool

Find OSFMount in your start menu and run it. You should get the following screen:

Click "Mount new..."

9. Select the decompressed backup file

Click on the "..." next to the image file text box. In the file browser shown, find your decompressed backup which should be inside a "restored" folder.

9a. Select the partition if prompted

A windows backup will ask for a partition. Highlight the "Partition" and click "OK"

10. Choose a drive letter

Select a drive letter to assign to your backup. Leave the rest of the options as shown and click "OK"

11. Your backup is now Mounted. Double Click on the drive to open it in explorer.

Ensure your backup is showing up in the list with the drive letter you chose. You can double click on the drive letter to open an explorer window to access your files.

If you require assistance, feel free to submit a support ticket at our helpdesk here: Submit a ticket | BinaryLane