[BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
Morning, I have just started to play with backuppc and am making good strides - local (SMB) backups are working fine and I am just about to have a look at rsync-based backups from a couple of local Linux servers before moving on to SMB/rsync via SSH and some VPNs. I am diligently RTFM-ing, supplemented with the stuff found via Google - which is a bit overwhelming, so I'd appreciate some short cuts from anyone with a bit more real-world experience if possible: 1) I presume(?) SMB-based backups cannot do block-difference-level copies like rsync? We have a number of remote (over VPN) Windows servers and I'd like to backup their MSSQL database dumps - they are around 700MB at the moment and I presume via SMB the whole lot will get transferred every time? 2) I have seen a number of guides for cwrsync on Windows-based PCs. Any votes on the best one and the best place to read up on this? I presume that since we'd be backing up via VPN, we could run rsync directly rather than via an SSH tunnel? 3) As the remote sites are linked via VPN, I could mount the remote shares to the local backup server and use rsync 'directly' - any pros/cons doing things this way (speed, reliability etc?), or is an rsync server on the remote servers a better approach? 4) I am running the backup server on CentOS 5.3 and installed backuppc from the Centos RPM. Ideally I'd like to run the app as the normal 'apache' user - I read up on a few generic notes about doing this and got to a point where backuppc wouldn't start properly as it couldn't create the LOG file. I then went round in circles looking at file permissions before putting things back the way they were in order to do some more learning. Is there a simple-to-follow guide for setting up backuppc to not use mod_perl - I have read the docs but am still not getting there. Many thanks Nigel Kendrick -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
Hi, Nigel Kendrick wrote on 2009-08-18 12:04:16 +0100 [[BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions]: > I have just started to play with backuppc and am making good strides - local > (SMB) backups are working fine I hope you mean SMB backups of local Windoze machines, not of the BackupPC server ;-). In any case, welcome to BackupPC. > [...] > 1) I presume(?) SMB-based backups cannot do block-difference-level copies > like rsync? We have a number of remote (over VPN) Windows servers and I'd > like to backup their MSSQL database dumps - they are around 700MB at the > moment and I presume via SMB the whole lot will get transferred every time? Correct. I'm not sure how well rsync will handle database dumps, though. You should try that out manually (if you haven't done so already). Please also remember that BackupPC will store each version independently, though possibly compressed (i.e. BackupPC only does file-level deduplication, not block-level). You only save bandwidth with rsync on transfer, not on storage. > 2) I have seen a number of guides for cwrsync on Windows-based PCs. Any > votes on the best one and the best place to read up on this? I presume that > since we'd be backing up via VPN, we could run rsync directly rather than > via an SSH tunnel? As far as I know, rsync doesn't work correctly on Windoze (rsyncd does, though). With a VPN, I'd definitely recommend plain rsyncd. I don't backup Windoze myself, but Deltacopy is mentioned often on the list - there's a thread from today [rsyncd on Vista 64-bit cygwin vs SUA] which you might want to check out. > 3) As the remote sites are linked via VPN, I could mount the remote shares > to the local backup server and use rsync 'directly' - any pros/cons doing > things this way (speed, reliability etc?), or is an rsync server on the > remote servers a better approach? If you mount the remote shares locally, you lose the benefit of the rsync protocol *completely*, because the "remote" rsync instance is running on the local computer and will need to read each whole file over the network in order to figure out which blocks don't need to be transferred (locally) ;-). You still get better backup precision on incrementals than with tar, but a remote rsync server (or rsync over ssh for UNIX clients) is definitely the better approach. I can't think of any advantages of mounting the remote shares, except that it may be slightly easier to set up (but does that count?). > 4) I am running the backup server on CentOS 5.3 and installed backuppc from > the Centos RPM. Ideally I'd like to run the app as the normal 'apache' user > - I read up on a few generic notes about doing this and got to a point where > backuppc wouldn't start properly as it couldn't create the LOG file. I then > went round in circles looking at file permissions before putting things back > the way they were in order to do some more learning. Is there a > simple-to-follow guide for setting up backuppc to not use mod_perl - I have > read the docs but am still not getting there. I believe the default *is* for BackupPC to *not* use mod_perl. Your RPM may differ, but the upstream documentation will not reflect this. The BackupPC CGI script needs to be run as backuppc user for various reasons (access to the pool FS, access to the BackupPC server daemon, use of the BackupPC Perl library), so you can either run the web server as backuppc user or implement some form of changing UID (the CGI script - BackupPC_Admin (or index.cgi on Debian, don't know about Centos) - is normally setuid backuppc, but that can't work with mod_perl, I believe). Do you have a reason for not wanting to run apache as backuppc user (eg. other virtual hosts)? I'm no apache expert, but *removing* use of mod_perl is bound to be easier than getting it set up (I never did set it up, though). Just make sure that your changes are not lost if you, one day, decide to upgrade the RPM package. Backing them up with BackupPC is a good idea, but remember that at the point where you would need to access them, your web interface would not be working ... Regards, Holger -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
Holger - thanks for the quick feedback - a few comments and answers below: -Original Message- From: Holger Parplies [mailto:wb...@parplies.de] Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:49 PM To: Nigel Kendrick Cc: backuppc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions Hi, Nigel Kendrick wrote on 2009-08-18 12:04:16 +0100 [[BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions]: > I have just started to play with backuppc and am making good strides - local > (SMB) backups are working fine I hope you mean SMB backups of local Windoze machines, not of the BackupPC server ;-). In any case, welcome to BackupPC. --> Yes, backing up Windows machines on the LAN via SMB > [...] > 1) I presume(?) SMB-based backups cannot do block-difference-level copies > like rsync? We have a number of remote (over VPN) Windows servers and I'd > like to backup their MSSQL database dumps - they are around 700MB at the > moment and I presume via SMB the whole lot will get transferred every time? Correct. I'm not sure how well rsync will handle database dumps, though. You should try that out manually (if you haven't done so already). Please also remember that BackupPC will store each version independently, though possibly compressed (i.e. BackupPC only does file-level deduplication, not block-level). You only save bandwidth with rsync on transfer, not on storage. --> Thanks, it's as I thought with SMB (all or nothing transfers). --> Got 2TB of RAID 1 to play with so storage not an issue! > 2) I have seen a number of guides for cwrsync on Windows-based PCs. Any > votes on the best one and the best place to read up on this? I presume that > since we'd be backing up via VPN, we could run rsync directly rather than > via an SSH tunnel? As far as I know, rsync doesn't work correctly on Windoze (rsyncd does, though). With a VPN, I'd definitely recommend plain rsyncd. I don't backup Windoze myself, but Deltacopy is mentioned often on the list - there's a thread from today [rsyncd on Vista 64-bit cygwin vs SUA] which you might want to check out. --> Already started working with cwrsync/rsyncd and grabbed some files from a local Win2K machine. --> Going to try across the VPN later. Looking a 700MB MSSQL database dumps - hoping to be pleased! --> Just subscribed to the list so only seeing posts from around mid-day onwards but will check the archives. > 3) As the remote sites are linked via VPN, I could mount the remote shares > to the local backup server and use rsync 'directly' - any pros/cons doing > things this way (speed, reliability etc?), or is an rsync server on the > remote servers a better approach? If you mount the remote shares locally, you lose the benefit of the rsync protocol *completely*, because the "remote" rsync instance is running on the local computer and will need to read each whole file over the network in order to figure out which blocks don't need to be transferred (locally) [snip] --> Thanks, seems like rsyncd over the VPN is the way to go. --> Also looks like rsync is more tolerant of high VPN latency > 4) I am running the backup server on CentOS 5.3 and installed backuppc from > the Centos RPM. Ideally I'd like to run the app as the normal 'apache' user > - I read up on a few generic notes about doing this and got to a point where > backuppc wouldn't start properly as it couldn't create the LOG file. I then > went round in circles looking at file permissions before putting things back > the way they were in order to do some more learning. Is there a > simple-to-follow guide for setting up backuppc to not use mod_perl - I have > read the docs but am still not getting there. I believe the default *is* for BackupPC to *not* use mod_perl. Your RPM may differ, but the upstream documentation will not reflect this. The BackupPC CGI script needs to be run as backuppc user for various reasons (access to the pool FS, access to the BackupPC server daemon, use of the BackupPC Perl library), so you can either run the web server as backuppc user or implement some form of changing UID (the CGI script - BackupPC_Admin (or index.cgi on Debian, don't know about Centos) - is normally setuid backuppc, but that can't work with mod_perl, I believe). Do you have a reason for not wanting to run apache as backuppc user --> May not be an issue, but I have one server running SugarCRM in a 9-5 operation and am planning to have the server do some overnight backups of LAN-based machines and I am just pre-empting this upsetting SugarCRM - it may not. --> I have another that's a small Asterisk (Trixbox) server (again, 9-5 only), where Apache has to be run as 'trixbox' and I am wondering how this may all fit together! Thanks again, Nigel -
Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Nigel Kendrick wrote: > --> May not be an issue, but I have one server running SugarCRM in a 9-5 > operation and > am planning to have the server do some overnight backups of LAN-based > machines and I am > just pre-empting this upsetting SugarCRM - it may not. > > --> I have another that's a small Asterisk (Trixbox) server (again, 9-5 > only), where Apache has to be run as 'trixbox' and I am wondering how this > may all fit together! You are probably better off leaving your apache config as-is, but getting it to run the backuppc cgi-scripts as user backuppc. This is done with the suexec module in apache, which is pretty much standard for most apache systems... You might need to install the package, or enable the module... I run a stand-alone backuppc server, but even that uses suexec to run backuppc scripts :) PS, try and run backuppc on a dedicated machine, mixing it with machines doing "real" work, means your backups might be on the machine you need to restore! Regards, Adam -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkqKwgYACgkQGyoxogrTyiWj4ACgujNPTbwlPoM8G4UMxS/9oGL0 7+sAn2UqwpqMDLBSHwALFHQ7IJOXXEes =kcTL -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
> Morning, > > I have just started to play with backuppc and am making good strides - local > (SMB) backups are working fine and I am just about to have a look at rsync-based backups from a couple of local Linux servers before moving on to > SMB/rsync via SSH and some VPNs. > > I am diligently RTFM-ing, supplemented with the stuff found via Google - which is a bit overwhelming, so I'd appreciate some short cuts from anyone with a bit more real-world experience if possible: > > 1) I presume(?) SMB-based backups cannot do block-difference-level copies like rsync? We have a number of remote (over VPN) Windows servers and I'd like to backup their MSSQL database dumps - they are around 700MB at the moment and I presume via SMB the whole lot will get transferred every time? You are correct sir; though depending on the file structure, some files pretty much get transferred in their entirety (I'm looking at you, windows registry.) > 2) I have seen a number of guides for cwrsync on Windows-based PCs. Any votes on the best one and the best place to read up on this? I presume that > since we'd be backing up via VPN, we could run rsync directly rather than via an SSH tunnel? You are correct about obviating ssh with a VPN. cwrsync does have a filename-length limitation, but otherwise, I've found it perfectly useful. The biggest problem most people have when getting it working is personal firewalls. Well, that, and open files, which is addressed here: http://www.goodjobsucking.com/?p=62 > 3) As the remote sites are linked via VPN, I could mount the remote shares to the local backup server and use rsync 'directly' - any pros/cons doing things this way (speed, reliability etc?), or is an rsync server on the remote servers a better approach? Local rsync over remote smb means that pretty much every file has to be read over the WAN in its entirety, whether it has been backed up or not. So I guess that's a con. > 4) I am running the backup server on CentOS 5.3 and installed backuppc from > the Centos RPM. Ideally I'd like to run the app as the normal 'apache' user > - I read up on a few generic notes about doing this and got to a point where > backuppc wouldn't start properly as it couldn't create the LOG file. I then > went round in circles looking at file permissions before putting things back > the way they were in order to do some more learning. Is there a > simple-to-follow guide for setting up backuppc to not use mod_perl - I have > read the docs but am still not getting there. I can't help you there. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] New user- loads of questions
Hi, On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 07:04, Nigel Kendrick wrote: > 4) I am running the backup server on CentOS 5.3 and installed backuppc from > the Centos RPM. Ideally I'd like to run the app as the normal 'apache' user > - I read up on a few generic notes about doing this and got to a point where > backuppc wouldn't start properly as it couldn't create the LOG file. I then > went round in circles looking at file permissions before putting things back > the way they were in order to do some more learning. Is there a > simple-to-follow guide for setting up backuppc to not use mod_perl - I have > read the docs but am still not getting there. I've been through the same with CentOS RPM for BackupPC, eventually I just stopped using it... I rebuilt the SRPM for BackupPC from Fedora, it builds just fine in CentOS 5 and works just fine. It actually starts working out of the box, without any changes to Apache needed, you're able to use Apache with user "apache" and even run other applications on the same server. I reported those issues to CentOS, but they still found that requiring the users to change Apache's user was acceptable and did not want to change that... You may also try EPEL's package of BackupPC, I believe it will be the same as the one I rebuilt from Fedora's SRPMS: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/BackupPC-3.1.0-3.el5.noarch.rpm Otherwise, get Fedora's SRPM here: ftp://ftp.nrc.ca/pub/systems/linux/redhat/fedora/linux//releases/11/Everything/source/SRPMS/BackupPC-3.1.0-5.fc11.src.rpm And use these instructions to rebuild it: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/RebuildSRPM HTH, Filipe -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
