Using ddrescue over a Network to a Shared Folder

First Create The Shared Folder

If your destination folder is on a Windows machine, then create a shared folder, assign permissions appropriately, and away you go.

If the destination folder is on a Linux machine, then install samba and add something like this to your smb.conf file:

[backups]
        path=/home/andrew/backups
        read only = No
        browsable = No
        valid users = andrew

Substiture your username for mine (andrew) and make sure that you have used smbpasswd to add your username and password to samba. Then restart samba.

Make sure that you have write permission to the shared folder on the destination machine.

Mount the Shared Folder

Usually I'm working inside knoppix to mount the shared folder. First create a mount point, then mount it.

root@Microknoppix# mkdir /mnt/backups
root@Microknoppix# mount -t cifs -o username=andrew,password=mypassword //192.168.3.122/backups /mnt/backups

If the shared folder is on a Windows machine, then you may need to add the -o lfs option for large file support.

Run ddrescue

Finally, change to the mount point and run ddrescue:

root@Microknoppix# cd /mnt/backups
root@Microknoppix# ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sda3 sda3.ddrescue ddrescue.log


GNU ddrescue 1.16
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
rescued:    17398MB,  errsize:       0 B,  current rate:   18107 kB/s
   ipos:    17398MB,   errors:       0,    average rate:   11251 kB/s
   opos:    17398MB,     time since last successful read:       0 s
Copying non-tried blocks...

Remember that if ddrescue is interrupted it can be restarted using the same command.