On 2012-04-02 7:15 PM, Micah Anderson <mi...@riseup.net> wrote:
Charles Marcus<cmar...@media-brokers.com> writes:
On 2012-03-27 11:47 AM, Micah Anderson<mi...@riseup.net> wrote:
One would be the ability to perform *intelligent* incremental /
rotated backups. I can do this now by running a dsync backup
operation and then doing manual hardlinking or moving of the
backup directories (daily.1, daily.2, weekly.1, monthly.1, etc.),
but it would be more intelligent if this were baked into the
backup process.
There are already numerous tools that do this flawlessly - I've
beenusing rsnapshot (which uses rsync) for this for years.
Are you snapshotting your filesystem (using LVM, or SAN, or similar)
before doing rsnapshot? Because if you aren't then rsync will not
assuredly get everything in a consistent state.
No, and you are correct... but I run it in the middle of the night, and
the system is only barely utilized at the time, so the very minor
inconsistencies are not a problem overall.
I will, however, be changing this to using FS snapshots once I get my
mailserver virtualized (already being planned for when our new office
location comes online), so that will allow me to perform snapshots
multiple times during the day (I'm thinking 4 times per day will be enough).
I don't know if Timo should be spending his time reinventing the
wheel.
dsync backup is already here, and it is quite useful.
I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying that there are already *plenty*
of different backup tools, and I don't see the sense in Timo spending
lots of time on creating a new one just for dovecot. His time would be
better spent just making it easier for any other backup tool to work better.
Although, one interesting piece that I am hopeful I'll be able to
implement soon (with Timo's professional help) is the ability to
easily and automatically map my rsnapshot snapshots directory to a
read-only 'Backups' namespace that automatically shows the
snapshots by date and time as they are produced. This way users
could 'go back in time' anytime they wanted without having to call
me... :)
Interesting idea, would be a great one to share with the community
if you decide to do so.
Absolutely - that is already on my list for when I pay Timo's company to
do this - document it on the wiki. Hopefully if any code changes are
needed to make it work right, they will be minor.
--
Best regards,
Charles
