Comments on: Comprehensive Desktop Backup http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/ Open Source, Open Standards Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:37:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.11 by: Mickey Gee http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-662 Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:46:52 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-662 >By Alex Rawls November 29th, 2007 at 5:10 pm > >I can’t agree with you more about keeping things >simple stupid... Then there is no down time while >you recover. > >Also, what are peoples’ thoughts on Unison as a >backup program? > Unison rocks. I've been using it for years to keep my home dir on my laptop and office computers in sync. Rock solid. Quick. Logical. I recommend it. >By Alex Rawls November 29th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
>
>I can’t agree with you more about keeping things >simple stupid… Then there is no down time while >you recover.
>
>Also, what are peoples’ thoughts on Unison as a >backup program?
>
Unison rocks. I’ve been using it for years to keep my home dir on my laptop and office computers in sync. Rock solid. Quick. Logical. I recommend it.

]]> by: Paul Wiesen http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-658 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:53:09 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-658 I've had great success getting back up and running after a hard drive failure with a DVD created using Mondo Restore. Mondo along with rsnapshot has saved me many headaches. I’ve had great success getting back up and running after a hard drive failure with a DVD created using Mondo Restore. Mondo along with rsnapshot has saved me many headaches.

]]> by: Daryl Caudill http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-655 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:59:14 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-655 >> No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore > I use gentoo stage4 backup and it was lot easier to just boot with liveCD and run tar extract than installing gentoo Agreed. When I'm done building a server, and it's ready for use, I always boot it with SystemRescueCD live cd, and backup the partition table and partitions (Partimage) to a writable DVD. Takes about an hour. I can build a new replacement server in about an hour, online and ready for data restore. >> No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore

> I use gentoo stage4 backup and it was lot easier to just boot with liveCD and run tar extract than installing gentoo

Agreed. When I’m done building a server, and it’s ready for use, I always boot it with SystemRescueCD live cd, and backup the partition table and partitions (Partimage) to a writable DVD. Takes about an hour.

I can build a new replacement server in about an hour, online and ready for data restore.

]]> by: Malahal Naineni http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-654 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:16:20 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-654 >> No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore I use gentoo stage4 backup and it was lot easier to just boot with liveCD and run tar extract than installing gentoo (maybe installing other distro's too). More over, installing all the packages you need and customizing them or configuring them for you would take lot more time. >> No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore

I use gentoo stage4 backup and it was lot easier to just boot with liveCD and run tar extract than installing gentoo (maybe installing other distro’s too). More over, installing all the packages you need and customizing them or configuring them for you would take lot more time.

]]> by: johneeboy3 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-653 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:36:47 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-653 Alex, Unison was not really designed as a backup tool. It is primarily a tool for maintaining mirrored data. In that (latter) capacity, it's great. I used it for a few months as a backup tool, but it has problems. It was a while ago now, so I'm sorry but I can't be more specific as to why - my bad memory! See my post above about BackupPC. It's fantastic. Cheers John Alex,

Unison was not really designed as a backup tool. It is primarily a tool for maintaining mirrored data.

In that (latter) capacity, it’s great.

I used it for a few months as a backup tool, but it has problems. It was a while ago now, so I’m sorry but I can’t be more specific as to why - my bad memory!

See my post above about BackupPC. It’s fantastic.

Cheers

John

]]> by: johneeboy3 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-652 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:34:48 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-652 BackupPC is a fantastic backup tool, which gets precious little air time. http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ Key points: * It's GPL * It's rsync-based, and written in perl. * It will back up Windows, Linux or OSX machines * It 'pools' identical files, saving massive amounts of space on the backup host * It compresses all backed up files. * It's extremely flexible. Basically anything can be (re)configured. * It facilitates backing up fixed (desktop) and often disconnected (laptop) machines. * It has a great web-based interface, allowing you to drill down to individual files in the backup as well as see the complete change history of a backed up file. On top of that, restores only take a few clicks and the file(s) are restored automatically back onto the target. I've been using backuppc in a production environment for 3+ years and it 'just works' and never fails. I currently have over 920GB of files backed up across more than 10 machines. Due to pooling and compression, the backup pool is only about 160GB!!! Simply fantastic and highly recommended. It's saved my IT life on numerous occasions. I've reviewed most backup systems and nothing else comes close to BackupPC. Cheers John BackupPC is a fantastic backup tool, which gets precious little air time.

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

Key points:
* It’s GPL
* It’s rsync-based, and written in perl.
* It will back up Windows, Linux or OSX machines
* It ‘pools’ identical files, saving massive amounts of space on the backup host
* It compresses all backed up files.
* It’s extremely flexible. Basically anything can be (re)configured.
* It facilitates backing up fixed (desktop) and often disconnected (laptop) machines.
* It has a great web-based interface, allowing you to drill down to individual files in the backup as well as see the complete change history of a backed up file. On top of that, restores only take a few clicks and the file(s) are restored automatically back onto the target.

I’ve been using backuppc in a production environment for 3+ years and it ‘just works’ and never fails.

I currently have over 920GB of files backed up across more than 10 machines. Due to pooling and compression, the backup pool is only about 160GB!!!

Simply fantastic and highly recommended. It’s saved my IT life on numerous occasions. I’ve reviewed most backup systems and nothing else comes close to BackupPC.

Cheers

John

]]> by: Alex Rawls http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-651 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:10:09 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-651 I can't agree with you more about keeping things simple stupid; however, RAID has its place in KISS backups. If you're only talking about mission critical files (meaning relatively little storage space required), then RAID-1 is your best friend. Though it costs more (a $15 PCI card for older machines, and another hard drive), you get a lot of redundancy, in fact 100% times the number of drives in the RAID. And if you RAID the entirety of both (or all) drives including your OS, then if a drive dies you can just take that bad one out and keep on chugging while you order another drive. Then there is no down time while you recover. Also, what are peoples’ thoughts on Unison as a backup program? I can’t agree with you more about keeping things simple stupid; however, RAID has its place in KISS backups. If you’re only talking about mission critical files (meaning relatively little storage space required), then RAID-1 is your best friend. Though it costs more (a $15 PCI card for older machines, and another hard drive), you get a lot of redundancy, in fact 100% times the number of drives in the RAID. And if you RAID the entirety of both (or all) drives including your OS, then if a drive dies you can just take that bad one out and keep on chugging while you order another drive. Then there is no down time while you recover.

Also, what are peoples’ thoughts on Unison as a backup program?

]]> by: John Fisher http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-649 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:07:00 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-649 Robin, I had a bad experience at a previous job with an wildly-overcomplicated RAID system with failover, but I also just plain think its too complex for simple stuff like backups. It has a place of course for high-speed servers and such, but my thinking about backups is keep it simple and dumb. I prefer hot spares to RAID enabled boxes for smaller servers too. When in doubt pick the simpler low-performance low-maintenance solution. JF Robin, I had a bad experience at a previous job with an wildly-overcomplicated RAID system with failover, but I also just plain think its too complex for simple stuff like backups. It has a place of course for high-speed servers and such, but my thinking about backups is keep it simple and dumb. I prefer hot spares to RAID enabled boxes for smaller servers too. When in doubt pick the simpler low-performance low-maintenance solution.
JF

]]> by: Robin Bowes http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-647 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:05:30 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-647 Why avoid RAID? Why avoid RAID?

]]> by: John Fisher http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-645 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:35:48 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4489/#comment-645 This is quite similar to the strategy I use at work to backup a small software office. Once we dumped the big tape drive, I took some old PIII generic boxes and created two backup servers, one for local and one at the home office in another town. (We have no IT dept, thank goodness, so individuals have to be somewhat responsible.) There is a canonical user and filename regex for all machines. Each development server tarballs the important areas and ships them over to the local backup server. Each user is allowed a home on the backup server. (desktop data is not mission critical) users are responsible for tarballing their own data and shipping it to their home on the backup server. I use a Ubuntu/Debian package called "simple network backup" to do incremental backups of my own desktop, but a simple cron job would also do. The backup server untars the mission critical tarballs and rsyncs them to the backup server offsite over an encrypted link. We do daily, weekly, monthly, yearly archiving using cron jobs. Important KISS principles: Use standard Linux components- perl, ftp, ssh, tar, rsync, cron Use (otherwise) obsolete machines with cheap non-RAID hard drives Avoid automatic restore - just save directory trees and expect to manually restore if necessary Critical data is stored in three places, including off-site No tape No IT dept No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore If a machine is awake and has a file of the right filename at the right location, back it up, else ignore Avoid RAID JF This is quite similar to the strategy I use at work to backup a small software office. Once we dumped the big tape drive, I took some old PIII generic boxes and created two backup servers, one for local and one at the home office in another town. (We have no IT dept, thank goodness, so individuals have to be somewhat responsible.)

There is a canonical user and filename regex for all machines. Each development server tarballs the important areas and ships them over to the local backup server.
Each user is allowed a home on the backup server. (desktop data is not mission critical) users are responsible for tarballing their own data and shipping it to their home on the backup server. I use a Ubuntu/Debian package called “simple network backup” to do incremental backups of my own desktop, but a simple cron job would also do.
The backup server untars the mission critical tarballs and rsyncs them to the backup server offsite over an encrypted link. We do daily, weekly, monthly, yearly archiving using cron jobs.

Important KISS principles:
Use standard Linux components- perl, ftp, ssh, tar, rsync, cron
Use (otherwise) obsolete machines with cheap non-RAID hard drives
Avoid automatic restore - just save directory trees and expect to manually restore if necessary
Critical data is stored in three places, including off-site
No tape
No IT dept
No backup of OS - its easier to reload than restore
If a machine is awake and has a file of the right filename at the right location, back it up, else ignore
Avoid RAID

JF

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