Last Updated: February 8th, 2021 4:37PM CET
Adding Generic S3 Storage Devices in NovaBACKUP 19.8 and 20.x
In NovaBACKUP 19.8 and 20.x, you now have the ability to addx Generic S3 storage as a backup location as well.
To get started, navigate to the "Device" tab within your NovaBACKUP client. At the bottom of the screen, select the "Add" button.
From the drop-down menu, select "Generic S3 Storage Services" and click "OK"
This will open the properties & settings page for the new S3 device you intend to add. It should be noted that all of the fields on the "S3 Settings" tab are required, although you can come back and edit these values at any time in the future.
Device Name: If you have multiple S3 accounts to add, it's helpful to add a custom Device name, so you can easily tell them apart. If you only have a single Generic S3 device to add, you can simply use the default name. This is the only field that can not be changed/edit later. Once you add the new device, the Device Name cannot be changed without deleting and re-adding it as a storage location.
Note: By default, a number starting with ".1" will be appended to the end of the Device Name, if you do not custom name each device.
Access Key ID: Enter the Generic S3 Access Key ID for your account.
Secret Access Key: Enter the Generic S3 Secret Access Key for your account.
Bucket Name: Enter the name of the Generic S3 Bucket you want your data stored in (basically the top level storage for this client device). The Bucket Name, User Name, and Backup Directory are a way to manage your backup data for this backup client and device, and the bucket name will be created automatically on the S3 side as it is entered here. You may, however, want to setup your bucket on your S3 provider PRIOR to adding it to NovaBACKUP in order to set up other options for that particular bucket. When you are viewing your Generic S3 buckets via the Generic S3 provider's own web admin interface, you will see this folder structure, once you complete a single backup to the Generic S3 device. The Bucket Name value does have certain restrictions for the naming, so reference your Generic S3 provider for how the Bucket Name can be formatted. For examples of bucket name guides (stating recommendations and naming restrictions) for two popular Generic S3 Storage Services providers, Wasabi's S3 Bucket name guide article can be viewed here, and Backblaze's S3 Bucket name guide can be viewed here.
Select "Check credentials" to confirm your settings for the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key properties.
User Name: Enter the name of the Generic S3 User Name that you want your data stored in, which is a folder that will be created under the Bucket Name. The User Name field is required to configure, but you can make the name be whatever you want in case you don't need to separate backups per user. If your organization has 30 users and all 30 have NovaBACKUP client installed each user's computer, and a Generic S3 device is in place on all of the clients, the User Name field will be valuable for you to specify the User Name properly for each user when you go to add or edit the Generic S3 device in each backup client that is installed on those 30 computers.
Backup Directory: Enter the directory you want your data stored within your S3 Bucket. This folder will be created under the User Name folder. The Backup Directory and the User Name are required fields, but you can set them to whatever you like.
By selecting the "Optional Settings" tab, you will see both a "Domain" and "Computer" field.
These values are really only utilized when using the "Import" function for your S3 backups.
They allow specifying both a Domain name and a Computer name, to allow the Import to know which Domain & Computer name to restore the backups from. Neither of these fields are required unless you need to import a backup that is missing from the Restore tab, or if you have lost your S3 backup restore index. The "Domain" and the "Computer" fields in this dialog are REQUIRED to be specified in ALL UPPERCASE. And the fields only support English ASCII characters for that matter.
Note: Currently in the first 20.0 Release it is required to utilize all UPPERCASE characters for the fields in this 'Optional Settings' tab, otherwise the Import function will fail, as it won't be able to find that Domain and Computer name if anything but all UPPERCASE characters are utilized for these two fields, if you have already utilized anything but all UPPERCASE characters in these two fields, then the device will need to be re-created, or a second new device created to specify the characters in these two fields in ALL UPPERCASE to allow the Import function to work.
Once you have filled in all the required (and optional) fields on these two tabs, click "OK" to add the S3 Storage Location. You should see it added under the "Device" tab immediately.
Your S3 Storage Location has now been added and is ready to be used immediately for your backups.