Re: [OT] Backup solutions - watching
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Alvin Oga wrote: > > > On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Jamie Lawrence wrote: > > > If you use it, I recommend keeping a close eye on it. > > if you use any backup system ... > - restore that "backup data" to a new disk regularly > and see that all the files are there.. [...] Yes, certainly, if you rely on your backup, both test and verify. What I was getting at specifically was that after experimenting with rdiff-backup, I found it problematic. It very well could be that I did something stupid, or that the software sucks, or that my computer is punishing me for being a US aggressor. I dunno. I was merely interested in provoking due diligence for those who choose to employ that particular software. -j, who makes an effort to speak in more than ellipses. -- Jamie Lawrence[EMAIL PROTECTED] "... in making the freedom-for-safety swap, we haven't just dishonored the dead of 9/11. We've helped something else die too." - Nick Gillespie -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - watching
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Jamie Lawrence wrote: > If you use it, I recommend keeping a close eye on it. if you use any backup system ... - restore that "backup data" to a new disk regularly and see that all the files are there.. ls -laR /Original > /tmp/x.x ls -laR /Restored-from-Backup > /tmp/y.y and start comparing/diff'ing for missing files ( and yeah..dont use the options shown above.. :-) might wanna use awk too check for certain things only (filenames, links) and ignore time for example.. c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 03:33:12PM -0800, Alvin Oga wrote: > fun stuff... :-) Oh, yeah! > On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Dave Sherohman wrote: > > Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a > > decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will > > yes... if one has the "holding disk space".. you have backups > already ... no tape needed ?? Well, yeah, kinda... It is just a holding area, after all. Your backups are not intended to remain there any longer than it takes to transfer them to tape. > - at the time i played w/ amanda... amanda required this > holding area and the comp didnt have $$$ for mroe disks But it sounds like you're buying the disk now anyhow, so... > > holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical > > device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary > > drive fails. > > backups should always be done on a different server > and preferably on a different 110v circuit Agreed, if you intend to use the holding disk as a primary repository for your backups. Its intended purpose is to allow backups to be run faster than the actual backup device is capable of writing data to tape, but it also works well as failover in case of problems with the tape drive, tapes not getting changed, etc. Within the bounds of the intended purpose, putting it in a different server is likely to be counterproductive since access speed would be reduced. > > I presume that's a home system, right? I can't think of any sort of > > professional setup where you would have that much data to back up and > > not have the money for a tape changer. > i do not do backup stuff for workstations/homes... need "real $$$" > for "real backups" ... for "supposedly real work done" :-) Yup. Basically my point: If you have a TB of real data to back up, I can't imagine that it wouldn't be worth enough to warrant either buying a robot or hiring a monkey to swap tapes as needed. > > > - i want the backup to be live within a few minutes > > > of the main server going down for whatever reason > > > > Sounds like you want a redundant server more than a backup solution. > no ... if they want it live... its just change the ip# form backup > to real and you're live and online... If you've got a live backup that can be brought online with just an IP address change, I'd call that a redundant server... > which implies they must have > the $$$ and disk space for these backups or cluster or ?? really > do lose few grand of real $$$ if the server goes down for 5 minutes > - so they better plan "everything" for "all contingencies" Quite true. > > > - i assume "yesterdays or last weeks" tape/disk/backups is BAD > > > and can still receover everything from day before or tonights > > > backup ... > > > > "BAD" in what way? Obsolete? That's why you do nightly > > incrementals. Or do you expect the media to decay within 48 hours? > > backups go back for dumb reasons The reasons you give would all spoil a backup from 5 minutes ago just as readily as one from yesterday or last week. What I was wondering about was why you "assume 'yesterdays or last weeks' tape/disk/ backups is BAD". > - gotta keep people out of the loop to avoid backup problems Yup. > > > - i can lose 2 FULL backups and still recover everything > > > > Cool. So can I - I run a one-week backup cycle and keep three weeks' > > worth of tapes. > > for 7 days you will not have proper backup if the last > full backup is faulty ?? In theory, yeah, that's possible. In practice, going back to a two- or three-week old full and then applying all the daily incrementals will be equivalent (aside from taking more time to perform) in almost all cases. Also keep in mind that amanda spreads fulls out over the dump cycle rather than doing them all at once, so a single tape failure can't take out all of my most recent fulls. (The down side, of course, is that it will take out at least one of them.) -- The freedoms that we enjoy presently are the most important victories of the White Hats over the past several millennia, and it is vitally important that we don't give them up now, only because we are frightened. - Eolake Stobblehouse (http://stobblehouse.com/text/battle.html) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 10:02:58PM -0500, Bob Paige wrote: > >Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a > >decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will > >finish fast, too.) My amanda server at work can easily run a week's > >worth of backups without needing a tape, just saving it all up on the > >holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical > >device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary > >drive fails. > > I would like to use CDR instead of tape, but I've heard that Amanda > requires you to use a new tape for each session (good or bad). That is correct. You can't count on a tape to still be where you left it if you relinquish control of it for even a moment, so amanda rewinds the tape and starts from the beginning each time. However, the latest version of amanda sounds like it has explicit backup-to-disk support (according to what I've read on the amanda mailing list), which might work a little better with CDRs. > If I wait > until the end of the week, assuming I've accumulated only 500-600MB of > changes, will it back it all up onto the single CDR? It could, but it's not quite how amanda is designed to work. In normal operation, amanada puts some full backups and some incrementals onto each tape with the objective of equalizing the amount of data on each tape. > What if it > accumulated more than would fit on a disk, would it span multiple disks? Amanda can spread a backup run across multiple tapes, but cannot span tapes within a single disklist entry. > Also, if you wait until the end of the week, does Amanda keep multiple > generations of the files modified during that week in the holding disk, > or only the most recent modification? Amanda ignores the fact that the backups will not be going to tape so, assuming you run it each night, you will get a version of each file for each day on which is was changed (and for each day that its disklist entry has a full backup, of course). -- The freedoms that we enjoy presently are the most important victories of the White Hats over the past several millennia, and it is vitally important that we don't give them up now, only because we are frightened. - Eolake Stobblehouse (http://stobblehouse.com/text/battle.html) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Bob, > > "Bob" == Bob Paige <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Bob> Opinions? > > I tried rdiff-backup. > I uses rsync-like transfer method to minimize net load and diff-like store method to > save > incrementals. Diff method is extended even for binary file (that is rdiff algorithm). > Just a random from-the-field report... I tried using rdiff-backup. It consistently choked after having several incremental backups. I don't know what the problem was - I'm not a python fan, and have a bad feeling about backup software that chokes, so I didn't persue it. If you use it, I recommend keeping a close eye on it. -j -- Jamie Lawrence[EMAIL PROTECTED] "The greatest thing about hope is that it makes absolutely no difference." -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - rdiff
Hi Alvin, > "Alvin" == Alvin Oga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Alvin> yes.. rdiff sounds like a good thing to do.. - make a 1 Alvin> line change and only save that one line diff changes Alvin> - but if one creates a 10MB.file and 100MB.file and Alvin> 1GB.file... - thhose 10MB files have to be saved daily ... Alvin> ( guess no different thant he current daily incrementals :-) Even you would use amanda you don't save disk space :-) rdiff-backup technology saves disk space and net load but not cpu on servers (python) :-) Alvin> - problem is we cannot reset the "special directory" Alvin> to now also include the new 10MB.file ... and want to only Alvin> save the new changes of the 10MB.file I didn't understand it. Each new 10MB file is a change. And it is authomaticaly stored in 'special directory' when do new backup. Alvin> - if we do recreate a new "special directory", than Alvin> the previous set of diff changes are lost ?? since those Alvin> diffs was applied to a different master special directory Alvin> ?? What is recreate a new 'special directory'? If you delete this spec dir, you can't recreate backup. This is dangerous to delete enything in stored tree since reverse increments upon on it :-( Because of that I have partition, the backups are stored in, read-only. Alvin> sounds like a fun problem to solve ?? :-) -- Jan Stavěl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - rdiff
hi ya savel On 21 Mar 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Bob, > > "Bob" == Bob Paige <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Bob> Opinions? > > I tried rdiff-backup. > I uses rsync-like transfer method to minimize net load and diff-like store method to > save > incrementals. Diff method is extended even for binary file (that is rdiff algorithm). yes.. rdiff sounds like a good thing to do.. - make a 1 line change and only save that one line diff changes - but if one creates a 10MB.file and 100MB.file and 1GB.file... - thhose 10MB files have to be saved daily ... ( guess no different thant he current daily incrementals - problem is we cannot reset the "special directory" to now also include the new 10MB.file ... and want to only save the new changes of the 10MB.file - if we do recreate a new "special directory", than the previous set of diff changes are lost ?? since those diffs was applied to a different master special directory ?? and yes.. a good way to do backups across the net ... little/minimal data traffic sounds like a fun problem to solve ?? c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
Hi Bob, > "Bob" == Bob Paige <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Bob> Opinions? I tried rdiff-backup. I uses rsync-like transfer method to minimize net load and diff-like store method to save incrementals. Diff method is extended even for binary file (that is rdiff algorithm). The program creates file tree with one special directory. There are stored reverse increments in the directory. The advantage is that the tree contents of the newest file, older ones are stored in reverse increments. So I have server with partition /var/backup. Mostly it is mounted as read-only. Rdiff-backup can backup remote server by ssh: rdiff-backup remote-pc::/etc /var/backup/network/remote-pc/etc ... it uses ssh when possible If you want to clean older increments you can do: rdiff-backup --remove-older-than 60D /var/backup/network/remote-pc The only reason to clear increments could be disk capacity :-) NOTE: If you can backup remote servers you have to use the same version of the program. There were choke some incompatibilities up in version 0.10 Enjoy doing backups :-) -- Jan Stavěl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will finish fast, too.) My amanda server at work can easily run a week's worth of backups without needing a tape, just saving it all up on the holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary drive fails. I would like to use CDR instead of tape, but I've heard that Amanda requires you to use a new tape for each session (good or bad). If I wait until the end of the week, assuming I've accumulated only 500-600MB of changes, will it back it all up onto the single CDR? What if it accumulated more than would fit on a disk, would it span multiple disks? Also, if you wait until the end of the week, does Amanda keep multiple generations of the files modified during that week in the holding disk, or only the most recent modification? -- Bobman -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
fun stuff... :-) On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Dave Sherohman wrote: > > i dont have time to play with tapes.. daily changing it.. > > - forget one day... and you're hosed > > Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a > decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will yes... if one has the "holding disk space".. you have backups already ... no tape needed ?? - at the time i played w/ amanda... amanda required this holding area and the comp didnt have $$$ for mroe disks > holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical > device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary > drive fails. backups should always be done on a different server and preferably on a different 110v circuit > > i prefer 100GB - 1TB of disks to be backed up to other disks ... > > ( tapes are too small for "full backups" and definitely too slow ) > > I presume that's a home system, right? I can't think of any sort of > professional setup where you would have that much data to back up and > not have the money for a tape changer. i backup Terabytes or 10's of Terabytes of data ... when i get called for backup stuff... i do not do backup stuff for workstations/homes... need "real $$$" for "real backups" ... for "supposedly real work done" :-) > By way of comparison, I work at a manufacturing plant. Home > directories for ~80 users, plus the company databases total out to a > little under 30G. size of data needed depends on the data those users create ... > not doing a full. Totals out to about 7G a night going onto tape, > taking 13 minutes to collect all the data onto the holding disk and a > three and a half to four hours to write it to tape. good ... :-) > > - i want the backup to be live within a few minutes > > of the main server going down for whatever reason > > Sounds like you want a redundant server more than a backup solution. i have 3 redundant backups on a typical backup system > Even if no human intervention is required, you're going to need more > than "a few minutes" to copy 100GB-1TB from one hard drive to > another. normally... i keep backups in tgz file though... but.. no ... if they want it live... its just change the ip# form backup to real and you're live and online... which implies they must have the $$$ and disk space for these backups or cluster or ?? really do lose few grand of real $$$ if the server goes down for 5 minutes - so they better plan "everything" for "all contingencies" ( and of course "joe blow" will be on vacation at the time ( the server or disks decides to get sick > > - i assume "yesterdays or last weeks" tape/disk/backups is BAD > > and can still receover everything from day before or tonights > > backup ... > > "BAD" in what way? Obsolete? That's why you do nightly > incrementals. Or do you expect the media to decay within 48 hours? backups go back for dumb reasons - disk being full is the most common backup problems - somebody played witht he patch panel - power loss - somebody hit reset on one of their pc that nfs mounted a server ... and nfs dies or crawls.. - gazillion reasons why backups fail - gotta keep people out of the loop to avoid backup problems > > - i can lose 2 FULL backups and still recover everything > > Cool. So can I - I run a one-week backup cycle and keep three weeks' > worth of tapes. for 7 days you will not have proper backup if the last full backup is faulty ?? i run incremental backup across 30 days in addition to the full backup that we assume worked ... but if it fails ... the 30 or 90 day incremental backups will compensate for any failed full backup - i keep 90 - 180 days of backups depending on data/disks available ( probably an overkill .. ( but i want a clean backup if a hacker had been sitting in ( the network for 30 dayz before they wake up and start playing - and yeah.. one has other problems if you didnt notice a trojan floating around for 30 days... but it will happen.. c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 14:54, Dave Sherohman wrote: > On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 01:04:08PM -0800, Alvin Oga wrote: > > i dont have time to play with tapes.. daily changing it.. > > - forget one day... and you're hosed > > Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a > decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will > finish fast, too.) My amanda server at work can easily run a week's > worth of backups without needing a tape, just saving it all up on the > holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical > device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary > drive fails. That's the way I use it - flush the backups to tape every Saturday morning. Downside is that you can lose a week's data is/when the holding disk dies. > > i prefer 100GB - 1TB of disks to be backed up to other disks ... > > ( tapes are too small for "full backups" and definitely too slow ) > > > > - i want the backup to be live within a few minutes > > of the main server going down for whatever reason > Yup. Different philosophy. If you want fast, random access to the backed up data, tape is definitely not the medium of choice. If you want to use the backup only for restores, disks are way too expensive. One of the major benefits of amanda is that backed up data are stored in a "well known" format (GNU tar or cpio - your choice). So in case of major disaster, you don't even need the amanda software for a bare metal recovery; a floppy with a tape driver and tar/cpio is enough. So I'm told - haven't been there (yet). Another cool solution, in some situations, is rsync. I've set up rsync to use an ssh connection to sync files over the Internet. The first time, rsync will copy the entire file. After that it copies only the differences - takes only a few seconds to maintain an offsite copy of the company books, a 4.5MB file. http://www.rsync.org/ http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/tech_report/node2.html > I don't care how (or even if) you back it up. If it's a playpen computer, don't worry about it. If it's for real, I do care. Is the only copy of 10 years of your bank account(s) on your disk? Is the computer a server with lots of fine-tuned config files? *Please* back up, and do a good job of it. My heart sinks when I have to tell somebody they've just lost vast quantities of data, and there's nothing to be done about it except maybe to go through years of bank statements and re-enter it all by hand. -- Glenn English [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 01:04:08PM -0800, Alvin Oga wrote: > On 20 Mar 2003, Glenn English wrote: > > 1) tape - can easily back up the entire system (and a small network) > > 2) DDS - others are faster, but they cost more > > 3) amanda, amanda, and amanda - command line, cron-able, free, and very > > reliable Agreed! > i dont have time to play with tapes.. daily changing it.. > - forget one day... and you're hosed Haven't used amanda, have you? Just set yourself up with a decent-sized holding disk and it's not a problem. (Your backups will finish fast, too.) My amanda server at work can easily run a week's worth of backups without needing a tape, just saving it all up on the holding disk. Just be sure the holding disk is a separate physical device to minimize the chance of losing it if the system's primary drive fails. Or, of course, if you have the money to spare, you can buy a changer and let the robot play with tapes for you. > i prefer 100GB - 1TB of disks to be backed up to other disks ... > ( tapes are too small for "full backups" and definitely too slow ) I presume that's a home system, right? I can't think of any sort of professional setup where you would have that much data to back up and not have the money for a tape changer. By way of comparison, I work at a manufacturing plant. Home directories for ~80 users, plus the company databases total out to a little under 30G. Using amanda, I'm getting full dumps of everything at least once a week, with nightly incrementals of anything that's not doing a full. Totals out to about 7G a night going onto tape, taking 13 minutes to collect all the data onto the holding disk and a three and a half to four hours to write it to tape. On the 20G tapes I currently use, I could handle pretty close to 100G without any additional hardware or changes to my backup configuration, although my 30G holding disk would only handle one or two days' backups without a tape change, rather than a week. Dumps to holding disk would still take well under an hour and writing the tape would be under half a day. So what's "too small" and "definitely too slow" there? > - i want the backup to be live within a few minutes > of the main server going down for whatever reason Sounds like you want a redundant server more than a backup solution. Even if no human intervention is required, you're going to need more than "a few minutes" to copy 100GB-1TB from one hard drive to another. > - i assume "yesterdays or last weeks" tape/disk/backups is BAD > and can still receover everything from day before or tonights > backup ... "BAD" in what way? Obsolete? That's why you do nightly incrementals. Or do you expect the media to decay within 48 hours? > - i want a "hands off backup"... if i go away for vacation > for a week/month... the systems are still properly backed up > ( semi-guaranteed ) That's exactly what you get from amanda with a suitably large holding disk or (preferably) a changer. > - i can lose 2 FULL backups and still recover everything Cool. So can I - I run a one-week backup cycle and keep three weeks' worth of tapes. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't use disks if that's what makes you happy. I don't care how (or even if) you back it up. But your criticisms of tape are, by and large, incorrect and/or misleading. I only mean to correct them. -- The freedoms that we enjoy presently are the most important victories of the White Hats over the past several millennia, and it is vitally important that we don't give them up now, only because we are frightened. - Eolake Stobblehouse (http://stobblehouse.com/text/battle.html) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions - my preferences
On 20 Mar 2003, Glenn English wrote: > On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 08:59, Bob Paige wrote: > > > Questions: > > 1) what is better for backup, tape, or CD? (I already have a CD burner) > > 2) if tape, what is a good/inexpensive product to use? > > 3) what software works best? > > IMHO, > 1) tape - can easily back up the entire system (and a small network) > 2) DDS - others are faster, but they cost more > 3) amanda, amanda, and amanda - command line, cron-able, free, and very > reliable i dont have time to play with tapes.. daily changing it.. - forget one day... and you're hosed if you're using tapes for weekly offline backups.. no problem find /etc /home /... -mtime -90 -type f | tar zcvf /dev/tape -T - ( 90 days worth of changes ) i prefer 100GB - 1TB of disks to be backed up to other disks ... ( tapes are too small for "full backups" and definitely too slow ) - i do daily, weekly, monthly incrementals - i want the backup to be live within a few minutes of the main server going down for whatever reason - i assume "yesterdays or last weeks" tape/disk/backups is BAD and can still receover everything from day before or tonights backup ... - i want a "hands off backup"... if i go away for vacation for a week/month... the systems are still properly backed up ( semi-guaranteed ) - i can lose 2 FULL backups and still recover everything backup example scripts and why backups fail too http://www.linux-backup.net/app.gwif.html c ya alvin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 08:59, Bob Paige wrote: > Questions: > 1) what is better for backup, tape, or CD? (I already have a CD burner) > 2) if tape, what is a good/inexpensive product to use? > 3) what software works best? IMHO, 1) tape - can easily back up the entire system (and a small network) 2) DDS - others are faster, but they cost more 3) amanda, amanda, and amanda - command line, cron-able, free, and very reliable It might also be a good idea to take snapshots of especially interesting stuff every once in a while with your CD burner. -- Glenn English [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
Bob Paige said: > Opinions? see this: http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/03/03/18/0252218.shtml?tid=106 for my own use, at the moment I use an Exabyte Mammoth tape drive for my backups. 20/40GB tapes. I got the tape drive for $100 from my previous employer(at the time ebay had em for $400-500). Nearly brand new, beautiful drive. before that I did manual backups with CDRs. Usually tar/bzip stuff and throw it on a CD. I use BRU(not professional, the old one) for my tape backups. nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
"Bob Paige" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I've been running my debian system without a backup for about a year > now. I understand the need for backup (hence this message) so please, > no assaults for not using one. > > Questions: > 1) what is better for backup, tape, or CD? (I already have a CD burner) > 2) if tape, what is a good/inexpensive product to use? > 3) what software works best? > > I did some googling and found Linux-Backup.net (and others). It > appears the state of backup for Linux is to use tar or afio and backup > entire images. I haven't found examples of backing up multi-GB > archives that span multiple tapes/CDRs. > > I'm imagining a baseline backup with periodic (maybe weekly, maybe > more often) incrementals. I can easily copy my relevant files (3GB+) > to a bunch of CDs, but then how do I keep track of newer backup copies > that should replace older versions? I am looking for software smart > enough to do this. > > Opinions? First opinion, don't start a new thread by replying to an already existing thread. In this case you replied on the "debian 2.0: some intruder broke in" thread and changed the "Subject". Just about any reasonable mail client (MUA) is threaded these days and I saw your topic only by chance because I was reading the original thread. If I, or anyone using a threaded mail client, had been ignoring the original thread your topic wouldn't have appeared. This is independent of the "Subject", mostly, and uses the "References" header, which you didn't modify. Back to the question... Tape is the best method, IMO, but you have to have some spare money laying around if you don't already have a tape drive. If you do decide to get a tape drive check out eBay for pretty reasonable 4mm drives, and probably other formats. Of course a lot of them are SCSI so if you don't already have a SCSI adapter that's another consideration. DDS2 tapes are pretty cheap. Given that, I like afbackup. Like amanda it can do network backups, and as far as I can tell everything else Amanda can do. When I first looked at Amanda it had some, to me, weird limitation. Something like having to fit all of the data for a run onto one tape? That's fine if you've got a big tape drive, but my little DDS2 4mm drive won't fit a full backup of my primary system onto one tape. afbackup has no such limitation. The one drawback of afbackup, and it's getting better all the time, is documentation. When I first started using it it was horrid. I don't think the author was a native english speaker, or was just a bad writer, and it showed. However it's gotten better with each release and is now not too bad. I'm not complaining, because I didn't do anything to help make it better. The software, in contrast, works fantastically. Never a problem, and I have had to do plenty of recoveries. Gary -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Backup solutions
Hi! On Thu Mar 20, 2003 at 10:59:40AM -0500, the boisterous Bob Paige <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote to me: > 1) what is better for backup, tape, or CD? (I already have a CD burner) IMHO tape, but it depends on cost, ... > 2) if tape, what is a good/inexpensive product to use? If have an inexpensive Seagate STD224000N aka Archive Python. Runs very good. > I did some googling and found Linux-Backup.net (and others). It appears > the state of backup for Linux is to use tar or afio and backup entire > images. I haven't found examples of backing up multi-GB archives that > span multiple tapes/CDRs. > > I'm imagining a baseline backup with periodic (maybe weekly, maybe more > often) incrementals. I can easily copy my relevant files (3GB+) to a > bunch of CDs, but then how do I keep track of newer backup copies that > should replace older versions? I am looking for software smart enough to > do this. Try amanda, very good network backup solution (http://www.amanda.org/). Of course, debian has packaged it. so long Thomas -- ___Obviously we do not want to leave zombies around. _/___\ - W. Richard Stevens ( ^ > Thomas Krennwallner / \ 1024D/67A1DA7B 9484 D99D 2E1E 4E02 5446 DAD9 FF58 4E59 67A1 DA7B (__\/_)_ http://bigfish.ull.at/~djmaecki/ pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
