StorageSync
Copyright (c) Afteroffice Sdn Bhd


Introduction

StorageSync is a software application that allows you to backup your computer files to the Online Storage for safe keeping or to be shared with others. It can also effect a reverse operation to restore the files in your computer as part of a disaster recovery procedure.

Features

  • Backup, synchronization and restoration of files.
  • Users can create multiple run profiles of backup, synchronization or restoration processes.
  • Items to transfer may include the entire folder and all its subfolders, or just files matching specific names (Include and Exclude filters).
  • Compression and encryption can be applied to the source files during the backup process for fast secure backups. Encryption is done on your computer prior to a file transfer for extra confidentiality.
  • SSL login can be used to ensure secure transmission of login information (usernames and passwords) over the Internet. - SSL transfers can be used to ensure secure transfer of file content over the Internet.
  • Customizable backup schedules allow backups to be run unattended automatically at regular intervals.
  • Incremental backup strategy ensures that only new or updated files are sent to backup server.
  • Delta-transfer further improve transfer efficiency by copying only differences of a file, as oppose to copying the entire file.
  • In the event of an interrupted connection, the partially transmitted content of a file is retained and its transmission will be resumed from where it left off, the next time it is copied. This saves considerable time, since the copying process is not restarted from the beginning again. This feature is especially useful if you have very large files to transfer over unstable Internet connections.  Unexpected broken connections become less of an inconvenience.
  • Comprehensive backup report lists all files being backup. Backup report will be delivered to the user automatically via email after each backup job is completed.
  • Runs on Windows, MAC OS X, and Linux.



System requirement

PC compatibles, running Windows 98, Me, XP, 2000, NT, Vista.
At least 300Mhz CPU clock speed, 128MB RAM, and 20MB of free diskspace.
Internet connection and a valid account for Online Storage with Afteroffice.

Similarly configured hardware running Linux operating system with KDE or Gnome windows manager.
RedHat and Fedora distributions is known to work well.

Apple computers running the Mac  OSX.


Installation

For Windows

Download the installation program from the appropriate download web page. This is currently http://www.afteroffice.com/storageSyncDownloads.html

Consult support@afteroffice.com for assistance if you are unable to download the installation program.

Run the installation program (e.g. storagesync-VERSION.exe) and respond to the questions asked during the process. In most cases, you can accept the default settings to proceed with the installation by clicking on the [Next] button. By default the installation will have StorageSync starts up automatically when Windows starts. If you do not want this behavior, uncheck the checkbox that says "Starts automatically with Windows starts".

Finish off the installation by clicking the final [Finish] button. If StorageSync is not started, you can start it by clicking on the StorageSync desktop icon, or navigate your taskbar menu to start it.

NOTE: StorageSync for Windows requires external commandline programs: touch.exe, md5sum.exe, curl.exe, 7za.exe and gpg.exe, which are all bundled and installed automatically.

For Linux

Download the installation package from the appropriate download web page. This is currently http://www.afteroffice.com/guide/storageSyncDownloads.htm

Consult support@afteroffice.com for assistance if you are unable to download the installation program.

Uncompress the installation file (e.g. storagesync.linux-VERSION.tar.gz) in an appropriate directory which you have full write access to.

To execute StorageSync, change into the installation directory and type: ./storagesync.linux &

StorageSync for linux requires common external commandline programs: touch, md5sum, curl, 7za and gpg. If these are not available on your computer, please consult your system administrator to install them.

For Mac OS X

Download the installation package from the appropriate download web page.  This is currently at http://www.afteroffice.com/guide/storage/syncDownloads.htm

Consult support@afteroffice.com for assistance if you are unable to download the installation program.

Open the downloaded .dmg file (e.g. storagesync-mac-osx-VERSION.dmg) and open in Finder. Drag the entire contain of this volume into a local folder. 

To execute StorageSync, double-click on the Application named "StorageSync" (StorageSync.app)

StorageSync for Mac OS X requires common external commandline programs: touch, md5sum, curl, 7za and gpg. 7za and gpg are bundled together in the installation package. If the other programs are not available on your computer, please consult your system administrator to install them.


Terminology

The words "backup", "restore", and "synchronization" are not used in the user-interface of StorageSync due to the many different interpretations of the words. While the words are used here in this help document, they are to be understood in its common meaning.

To avoid confusion, StorageSync only uses the words "copy" or "transfer" of files, and qualifying it further with the direction of the file transfer. The direction of the transfer could be from your computer to the server (backup) or from the server to your computer (restore) or both directions (synchronization).


User Interface components

The profile list

Lists the profiles you have created. They may represent backup, restoration, or synchronization settings. Each profile remembers the local folder and the remote folder you have selected and all the optional settings. A login account information (login profile) and the direction of copy is also associated with each profile. Click on a profile name in the list (on the left) and the settings (on the right) will be restored to previously saved selections. You can thus switch between profiles quickly. The currently selected profile is highlighted with a gray background.

The profile management buttons

Four buttons at the bottom of the profile list are for managing the creation of the profiles. They are [New], [Delete], [Rename], [Clone]

[New] Use this button to create a new profile from scratch. Enter a profile name in a popup window to proceed. The new profile will have default settings. The local folder and remote folder fields will be empty and must be filled appropriately before a run.

[Delete] Use this button to delete the currently selected profile.

[Rename] Use this button to rename the currently selected profile.

[Clone] Use this button to create a new profile with ALL its settings being a copy of the currently selected profile. Name this new profile in the popup window to proceed. This function is useful to create a profile that is just a slight variation of an existing one. For example, we could clone a backup profile, and then by simply changing the direction of the file transfer, we could have a corresponding restore profile.

The wall clock

This is simply the ticking clock matching your computer's clock. This clock is use to schedule your automated runs, and also to timestamps the files. Ideally, this clock should match the server's setting in terms of timezone and accuracy.

The status bar

The status bar at the bottom is used to convey some program activity or error messages. This is also used to show the name and time of the next scheduled profile run.

The Settings

Local folder

The Local Folder field specifies the path to a folder in your computer. It could be the source of files to be backup to server or the destination for files from the server. The copy-direction will determine this.

Remote folder

The Remote folder filed specifies the path to a folder on the server (Online Storage). It could be the destination folder for the files from your computer, or the source of files to be downloaded to your computer. Again the copy-direction will determine this.

Login user

This indicates the user account that you have entered to access the server. If it shows "(Invalid user profile)", then it means you have not entered an account yet. The Login Profile window is used to specify this user account and the corresponding password.   The Login Profile window is described in greater detail in later section of this document.

Copy Direction

The icon immediately to the left of the Local Folder and Remote Folder fields shows the selected copy-direction. The computer image represents your computer and the globe represents the remote server. A green arrow between shows the direction of the copy, either from local-to-remote folder or remote-to-local folder. A third case of two green arrows appearing, means bi-directional transfer. This is sometimes termed as "synchronization". In this case, newer files will be transfered and they may be sourced from your local computer or from the remote server, depending on their timestamp. So, in such a run, it is possible there may be file transfer in both directions.

The Selection / Schedule / Options tab

There are 3 categories of settings, grouped under these three interface tabs: Selection, Schedule and Options. Each will be explained further in later sections of this document.

Saving settings

The [Save] button will be available to click on, whenever there are changes made to any setting. Any change to settings take effect immediately, but is not save to disk under the current profile. Remember to save any changes by clicking the [Save] button before selecting a different profile or quitting StorageSync. Otherwise the changes are not saved. You may also wish to NOT save changes that are only temporary.

Running a profile

The [Run] button will initiate a Pre-Run of file transfer as specified by the settings in the current profile. A Pre-Run window will appear to show the list of files that will be transfered (or not transfered). The Pre-Run phase does not effect any file transfer yet, but merely analyze both the local and remote folders. Clicking on the [Proceed] button in the Pre-Run phase will then effect the transfer (Run phase).

An automatically invoked scheduled run will not require any user intervention. But the Pre-Run and Run phase will continue to appear on screen.

Browsing and selecting a Local folder

Click on the [Browse] button to the right side of the Local Folder field. A folder navigation window should appear for you to make the appropriate selection.   The exact look of the local folder navigation window depends on your computer operating system. It should be familiar and intuitive to use.


File Menu

File -> Export

The Export function saves a copy of ALL your profile settings into a compressed formatted file on the storage server under your account. In particular the file is in your Online Storage folder /Private/_storagesync_profiles.7z.

The purpose of this file is to allow the restoration of your profile settings in the event that your hard disk crashed and you had to reinstall StorageSync. Instead of reconstructing your profiles again from memory, you can invoke the Import function to restore the last Exported profiles.

To automatically Export your profiles everytime changes were made, you can check the [Automatically export to remote after settings changed] option and click on the OK button.  A confirmation prompt will remind you that Export is about to take place, after changes to any profile setting are made.

You can also do an Export function immediately by clicking on the Export Now button.

You may treat the Export function as a backup process for your profile settings. It is recommended that you keep an exported copy of your profiles current by enabling automatic exporting, especially if you have many profile settings.

WARNING: The Export function overwrites the existing compressed formatted file on the server. If you are doing a recovery process, and want to import the saved Exported file, you must not do another Export process, which will overwrite the current Exported file.

File -> Import

This the complementary function to the Export function.  It will only successfully work if there is a previously Exported file on your Online Storage account.

It does the reverse of the Export function by downloading a previously exported file and replacing ALL profiles and thus recreating the profile settings that you previously had.

This action should only be used during a disaster recovery process, and not casually used any time.

WARNING: The Import function replaces ALL existing profile setting with the ones saved in the Exported file.  Import can potentially erase existing profile setting that you may want to keep.

File -> Quit

Terminate the StorageSync program.  Remember that scheduled run will NOT execute if StorageSync is not running.

Edit Menu

Edit -> Login Info

This function opens up the main Login Info that must be entered before using StorageSync. The info will also serve as the default login information whenever connection is made to the storage server.  All Run Profiles, by default, will connect using this Login Info unless a seperate one is setup for it. ( See section on Login Profile window below. )

Three important pieces of Login Info are Server, Login and Password. These information will be given to you if you have a valid account on the storage server.

Server is the server name or IP number of the server on which you account resides. Login is usually in the form of an e-mail id.

Type manually in the Password field. The enter password is hidden from view with a series of asterisks.  Cut-and-paste the password from elsewhere will not work in this field.

You can optionally save this password so that you don't need to key it in everytime.

SSL Login tells the program to employ Secure Socket Layer when transmitting login information, the username and password, to the server. This adds assurance that the sensitive information will not be discovered by a third party during transmission.


Help Menu

Help ->Help

This function open up this document, which is a guide to using StorageSync.

Help -> Video Tutorial


This function redirects you to an online video tutorial on how to use StorageSync.

Help -> Check for Updates


This will invoke the process to connect to our update server to check if there are any newer version of this software. If there is a newver version, you will be guided to the appropraite webpage to download it.

StorageSync automatically checks for update at least once a day and will remind you of a newer version, if any. If there is an update available there will be a message "Click Here for Update!" shown at the top righthand corner of the main StorageSync interface window. As what the message says, you can click on it to proceed to download the newer copy.

An update is usually a new installation bundle of software that you download and install over the current copy in your computer.  An upgrade will preserve your existing Profile settings.  To remove all previous profiles, it is recommended to do and Uninstall of the program and manually delete all folder content in the installation folder, typically at C:\Program Files\StorageSync

Help -> About

Pops up a small window announcing the version of this software.



Browse Remote Storage

Click on the [Browse] button to the right side of the Remote Folder field. A remote folder navigation window should appear for you to make a selection. Accessing a remote folder requires a valid account on the Online Storage. If access appear to fail, the Login Profile window will automatically appear to request for login information. Read the section on Login Profile for more information. Once a valid login profile has been provided, you can then navigate the remote folders freely.

The focused folder

The topmost field in the remote folder navigator (Browse Remote Storage) shows the remote folder that is in focus.

The remote folder listing

The larger field immediately below it is the listing of the focused folder.

Folder and file count

The folder and file count, at the bottom of the window, shows the count of the subfolders and/or files in the remote folder listing.

Remote storage quota

Storage quota and storage usage of this part of the remote storage is shown at the bottom of the window. There are different storage quota for Private, Company and Public storage spaces on the Online Storage. The availability of these quota is subject to your account privileges. Consult your administrator or service provider for clarification. Note: Storage quota will not be shown for focused folders for which no file creation is allowed. For example, focused folders "/" and "/Network Share/".

Going up one folder level

Click on the first icon at the top to navigate up one folder level.

Refreshing folder listing

Click on the second icon at the top to refresh the remote folder listing.

Creating new remote folder

Click on the third icon at the top to create a new remote folder in the current focused folder. Enter the name of the new folder in a popup window and proceed.

Delete file/folder (Trash)

The fourth icon (Trash) is used to delete file or folders that is selected in the current listing.  Make your file (or folder) selection first in the listing and then click on the trash icon.  You may make multiple selection by holding down the CTRL or SHIFT key while clicking.  WARNING: Entire folder contents will be deleted. Deleted files cannot be undone.  Use this function with care.

Changing login profile

Click on the top rightmost icon to access the Login Profile window. The Login Profile window allow you to specify the login information necessary to access the remote server.


Login profile window

The Login profile window can be accessed through the Browse Remote Storage window, by clicking on the top-right icon. It may also appear automatically when server authentication fails.

[Use this profile's login information below]  means to disregard the main Login Info (Entered under the Edit -> Login Info) and use the information in this window as the login info for this Profile. This allows you to connect to a different account, if you have one. If you leave this checkbox empty (which is the default), the main Login Info will be applied instead.

The Login Profile window has three main input fields, the Server, Login and Password.

For the field Server, the usual value to enter is "vo.afteroffice.com". However, depending on your account, you may have to enter a different value. This information would have been given to you at the time of account activation. A list of previously entered server names is accessible by clicking on the area marked by [<<] next to the AVO Server field.

The value for the Login field is usually in the form of and email id, for example, username@hostname.com.  This information will also be given to you based on your account.

The Password field is where you would enter your password to access the account you have given. You will need to manually type in the password in this field. Do not cut-and-paste the password in this field.

You can optionally save this password to disk, so that it can be conveniently recalled the next time the profile is loaded. Otherwise you have to re-enter the password each time the profile is newly loaded. Check [Save password] to save the entered passwords so that you don't need to key it in at every session.

[SSL Login] tells the program to employ Secure Socket Layer when transmitting login information, the username and password, to the server. This adds assurance that the sensitive information will not be discovered by a third party during transmission.





Selection settings tab

Here you select what files (or folders) you wish to transfer.

By checking [Copy all], this means to simply select ALL files in the source folder to be copied. Checking [Include subfolders] makes the selection span all files in subfolder, and their subfolders, etc. This has the effect of selecting an entire folder and all its content.

[Copy empty folder] optionally tells the program whether to copy empty subfolder or not. If unchecked, empty subfolders in the source will not be duplicated in the destination.

[Copy newer files only] means to effect transfer of files that have later timestamps compared to same named files on the destination. This is useful to just copy files that have been updated in the source folder, after an earlier run has taken place. In other words, this means that  only older copies in the destination will be replaced with updated ones from source. Those that do not appear to be older are not replaced, saving run time.

Files that are in the source but not in the destination are normally copied over if they are not excluded by other filtering rules. In the case of files that are in the destination but not in the source, they are normally left untouched. Sometimes you may want the destination to "mirror" the source folder exactly. For example, after you delete a file in the source folder, you may want the obsolete copy in the destination to be deleted too. The [Delete in destination if not in source] option allow you to do this. (But note that this option is not applicable in case where the copy-direction is bi-directional.)

File Include/Exclude

The File Include field is used to list filenames that you only wish to select for transfer.

The [Copy all] option and File Include field are mutually exclusive, meaning when [Copy all] is selected, this field is not applicable anymore.

The File Exclude field is used to list filenames that you wish to exclude from whatever that may be included before, from the File Include field or as a result of [Copy all] option.

Complete filenames are not normally used in the file include/exclude fields. These fields accept "patterns" that matches up to multiple filenames. For example, *.doc would match all filenames ending with ".doc" --- matching files like "mydocument.doc", "report.doc", "resume.doc".

The patterns use the following characters to represent wildcards.

Wildcard pattern What it means
* means to match anything number of characters.
? means to match any one character.
[xy] means to match character "x" or "y" only, where "x" and "y" and be any character.


Examples:

Example pattern What it means
* matches all names!
*.* matches only filenames that has a dot in it.
 *.xl[st] matches filenames that end with .xls or .xlt
a* matches filenames that begin with "a" or "A", matching is case insensitive.
*.?? matches filenames that end with two-letter extension.
myfile.mp3 matches exactly one file named myfile.mp3


Multiple patterns can be specified to include more matches. Use a comma to separate each pattern.

Examples:

Example pattern What it means
*.com, *.exe, *.bin means to match files ending with .com, .exe or .bin


Folder Include/Exclude

The Folder Include and Folder Exclude fields works very much like the File Include/Exclude fields but it applies only to folder names. Thus you can selectively include/exclude particular folder by their names.

 

Schedule settings tab

The schedule settings consist of the [Active] checkbox, the Start Time specifier (Start at), and schedule type selector (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Once).

The [Active] checkbox must be checked first to make changes to the settings. Uncheck this checkbox to temporarily disable the current scheduling.

The [Start at] start time indicates the time of the day when a run should start. This is immediately obvious for schedule type Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Once.

Lets look at  the schedule type Daily, the [Start at] time has the obvious meaning, and is the only parameter to adjust.

To adjust the [Start at] time, you must first click on the hour segment (or minutes segment) and then use the up/down pointers on the right to make the adjustment. Similarly, change the AM/PM part by first clicking on it, then clicking on the up/down pointers.

Missed scheduled runs will automatically execute the next time StorageSync runs.  This means that if your computer is shutdown or if StorageSync was not running during the time when a scheduled run would have taken place, the next time StrorageSync is up and running, it will execute those missed scheduled runs.



Options settings tab

The Options lists the remaining settings controlling the behavior of the profile run. This section describe each of the settings.

[SSL transfers] tells the program to employ Secure Socket Layer when transferring file content. A slight speed degradation to overall transmission speed is expected when SSL Transfer is enabled. Enable or disable SSL transfers, depending on the sensitivity of your data.

[Verify transfers] tells the program to verify that the resultant file transfered is identical to the original source file.  Simple filesize comparison is done first and then followed by a full MD5 checksum verification. Generally a few extra seconds will be needed at the end of a file transfer to make a verification. Very large files may take longer.  It is recommended that this option is enabled to ensure data integrity.

[Send log report by e-mail] will send an e-mail containing the report on the result of a profile run.

[Only after a scheduled run] further qualifies the above setting to send a report only after an automatically invoked scheduled run.

[Do not abort even if many errors] tells the program to continue execution even many errors are encounters.

[Encrypt and compress remote files] tells the program to encrypt and compress a copy of local file before copying this encrypted file to the server. The filename on the server has an extension ".enc" added at the end, to indicate that it is an encrypted file. When encrypted files are copied back down from the server to your computer, it will automatically decrypted and its original filename is restored.

The password for encryption (and decryption) is entered in the two fields, [Password] and [Repeat it]. The requirement to repeat the password is to help ensure that you are able to recall the password later. The password can be optionally saved to disk and recalled automatically when the associated profile run is loaded.

[Anti-Virus scan] enables the scanning of all files that are transfered for possible virus infection. This is done with the copy of the file on remote server using the anti-virus facility there.   Files that are infected will be flagged as error during transfer. No file will be deleted.  Please take appropriate steps to delete or contain the infected files to prevent  their use.

[Enable resumption of transfers] means the ability to resume a broken or interrupted transmission. The partially transmitted portion of a file resides on the destination as a filename with extension ".part". Only the remaining unsent portion of a file is transmitted when the profile is run again. This feature saves time since the file content is not transmitted from beginning again. This option is enabled by default.

[Use delta-transfer if possible] enables or disable a feature called "delta-transfer". This is another time saving feature especially for cases when there are large files being transmitted regularly, but each update contain only small amount of changes (delta) within the file. Delta-transfer analyzes the earlier transmitted copy of a file in the destination and determine the parts that differ from the updated copy in the source. Then only the differing parts (delta) from the source file is transmitted, while the remaining parts are constructed from the old file that is already in the destination. A little extra processing time is needed to analyzes the source and destination files to determine their differences. This time is usually well spent because the time to transmit just the differences is much shorter than it would take to transmit the whole file again from start.


Running a profile

To begin running a profile, first select it from the profile list on the left, then click on the [Run] button. An intermediate Pre-Run stage is started in a new window. In this stage the Local Folder and Remote Folder will be inspected to identify what files that will be transmitted. A list of files will be shown together with the subfolders they are in.

The [Action] column in the Pre-Run list convey brief information on what action will be applied to an item in the run.

A blank action means no action will be done to the item. 

Possible actions are explained below.

Action What it means
copy -> indicates that a local file will be transmitted to the remote folder.
copy <- indicates that a remote file will be transmitted to the local folder.
create -> indicates that a remote folder will be created, to match the local one.
create <- indicates that a local folder will be created, to match the remote one.
resume -> indicates that the previous transmission of the local file was interrupted, and will be resumed now.
resume <- indicate that the previous transmission of the remote file was interrupted, and will be resumed now.
delete ->  indicates that the remote file (or folder) will be deleted
delete <- indicates that the local file (or folder) will be deleted.


To proceed with the run, and thus carry out the "actions" on the items, click on the [Proceed] button. File transfer will take place in a Transfer Progress window.

When Pre-Run stage is in the midst of working and scanning the selected folders for transfer, the [Proceed] button actually reads [Auto Proceed].  This means that you can manually tell the program to immediately proceed after completing the Pre-Run stage without pausing.  This useful in cases of Manual Runs that take a long to complete in the Pre-Run stage.  If you do click on the [Auto Proceed] button, its label will temporarily change to [Waiting...] to indicate that it has registered your request to auto proceed later.



Transfer Progress window

The Transfer Progress window lets you monitor the progress of the transmission of files.

You can see the progress on each individual file as it is being transmitted (File copy progress) and the progress of the entire run as a whole (Overall progress).

The rolling item number indicates the progress through the all inspected items, and does not necessarily mean actions will be applied to all of them.

An estimated time of completion of the run is shown. This is based on the estimated transmission speed shown in brackets under the Overall progress bar.

You may cancel the transfer progress by clicking on the [Cancel] button.  This may interrupt a file content that is being transmitted midway, and result as an "error" condition in the log report.

The transfer progress will also terminate automatically in the event of unrecoverable transmission errors or if too many errors were  encountered during processing.