Has anyone used the Linode VPS for hosting a Crashplan headless service to make use of the "backing up to a friend's computer" option?

Thanks!

I haven't but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Crashplan works on Linux fairly well.

I also don't see why it wouldn't work and its a neat idea. I love Crashplan and have been a long time user so would be interested to learn how you get on.

It seems to work as advertised. All I need to confirm now is that the remote backup host (Linode) account does not need to have an active Crashplan account for the setup to continue working. When I created a temp account for using Crashplan on Linode, I got a 30-day trial license, so I can't check what would happen if that license does not exist on the Linode side. Hopefully it still works. Right now backup happening at 11.9 Mbps

You won't have to keep a paid CrashPlan plan, but I believe you will still need to have the Crashplan instance registered with a Crashplan account (so the machine can be located by the friend doing the backup). Your account with Crashplan just acts as a directory service in that case.

Note that once you no longer have a paid CrashPlan plan, the backup options become a bit more limited (e.g., it's restricted to once a day backups), but it'll work just fine. It might also only apply to the machine from which the backup is being made (e.g., if that account has a paid plan, it can probably back up under any frequency to a friend even if they don't have a paid plan).

-- David

I can live with having an extra account with Crashplan to keep the setup running