Are there five different account types?

General Topics
1

I’ve started using KopiaUI (user@win11host) and a commandline server (user@debianhost). I’m successfully separately backing up data from the workstation and the server into a single repository, but I can’t figure out how to see all my backups in the gui or in the web ui. It’s led me to understand that I don’t understand the account structure at all. :slight_smile:

I’ve listed below the different kinds of accounts that I’ve seen people talking about on the forums:

  • “user account” (username@hostname). Snapshot source identity and access control. Appears hostname doesn’t have to match the actual host.
  • “agent account”. Authentication between UI and server, or server-server. Not sure if I ever see this as a user.
  • “web account”. Lets you see the web gui, unclear how to map to user account access.
  • “control account”. Authentication for repository management?
  • “repository account”. Alias for control account? Or maybe this is in reference to the system account that owns the filesystem repository files?

Do I have this even slightly right? Have I overlooked a document that gives an overview of this stuff?

2

Screenshot 2025-02-17 at 9.36.43 pm
Screenshot 2025-02-17 at 9.36.43 pm1854×1230 177 KB

For cmd use --all flag:

3

AFAIK there are only 3 types of accounts:

  • normal user account: Account to create and access snapshots and policies. 1 user per repository (usually the creator of the repository) is set as the owner and running maintenance tasks. Account information is stored in the repository.
  • ‘basic auth’ user: Authentication for WebUI access. Only used when starting the server mode. Account information is NOT stored in the repository.
  • ‘control user’: User to send API commands. Only used when starting the server mode. Account information is NOT stored in the repository.
4

Thanks for the advice on seeing all. I had looked in that web gui menu – but it turned out the kopia server refresh command wasn’t working as expected. In the end I just needed to kill and restart my sever.

Edit: Looks like I’m not the only one who got confused by this. :slight_smile:

5

Thanks for that summary, it has helped! For future readers:

  • –server_user is a deprecated synonym for --server_control_user.
  • I have been utterly unable to use an htpasswd “auth user” work in the webui. Only the control user wants to authenticate.
  • There does not seem to be a way to specify a “normal user” for use by the web ui; its persistent default is an empty view of local snapshots, I believe of “root”, who does not own any snapshots.