Feature suggestion - serialize across systems

Features
1

duplicati serializes backups on a given system, but can it serialize across systems?

I envision something along these lines…

  • backup on server “B” is configured to check status on server “A”
  • server “A” responds with a simple yes/no answer indicating backups are running and/or pending; i.e. idle yes/no?
  • when server “A” responds that no backups are running/pending, the backup on server “B” proceeds

There are several obvious enhancements to the above:

  • option to start backups after an amount of time even if server “A” never reports that it is idle
  • how to handle if server “A” never responds
  • this could even be extended to check specific backups on server “A”, although that starts getting into potential authorization/security issues
2

Generally, Duplicati is designed to be “single instance” and does not interact with other Duplicati instances (local or remote).

You can do something like that with ServerUtil, where you can query a Duplicati instance with a commandline tool.

You can ask for the state of Server B, and trigger a backup on Server A for instance, but you need to open at least one of the instances to listen on a public network interface (it uses loopback only by default).

I would think a script of sorts could handle these actions, using ServerUtil as the building block.

3

You could use the feature to trigger scripts on start / finish of a job (run-script-after) to trigger webhooks.

I have a simple script that runs a curl command to trigger a webhook on my homeassistant server. Then I switch off the backup drive via smart plug.

I also start the backup itself via webhook (on a Linux / docker Server)

See here:

How to use a webhook to trigger something directly on duplicati, I did not try. Probably this will work with Server util or duplicati-cli.

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