Re: [GTALUG] Wireless Access Point Question

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 08:17:21PM -0500, Peter Hiscocks via talk wrote:
> I recently extended our household network using a couple of TP-Link
> TL-PA8030P powerline adaptors.  So far, that seems to work fine.  The link
> speed at the far end is essentially the same as it is at the DSL modem.  I
> just plugged them in and they worked.  There is also a 'pair' button that
> creates an encripted link between the units on the network.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> - I'm going to add a third adaptor to the network, but these things are only
> sold in pairs.  So I'll buy the kit of two for around $100 and have a spare
> one.  Anyone here interested in a single unit?

Keep it.  You'll need it when one of them overheats.

> 
> - The existing Sagecom modem-router has resonably decent wi-fi coverage, but
> to fill in a dead spot I'd like to plug in a wireless access point to one of
> these powerline adaptors.  The Canada Computer sales person suggested the
> TP-Link WA901ND, but that one has terrible reviews.  Does anyone have a
> suggestion for a suitable device?  Ease of configuration is a
> consideration ;).

How about regular wifi router?  Or, one of those mini portable routers?
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Re: [GTALUG] Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 07:35:53PM -0500, Kevin Cozens via talk wrote:
> On 16-12-23 07:05 PM, William Park via talk wrote:
> > I just tried "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" (yes, it's real title).  With
> > this, there are now 4 ways of running Unix tools on Windows.
> 
> 5 ways if you include MSYS.

Is that the same family as Cygwin?
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[GTALUG] Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
Hi all,

I just tried "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" (yes, it's real title).  With
this, there are now 4 ways of running Unix tools on Windows.

1. busybox -- single binary running on Windows.

2. Cygwin -- you download and install bunch of programs, like bash,
bc, awk, sed, etc, that will run natively on Windows.

3. VirtualBox -- full VM.

4. Bash on Ubuntu on Windows -- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS command line on
Windows 10 (64bit only).  I kind of like it, because it's "official"
and will replace Cygwin, at least.  Busybox is still useful for
other Windows, but as Windows10x64 becomes the standard, it will be
replaced too.
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread John Moniz via talk 

On 12/23/2016 04:58 PM, William Park via talk wrote:

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 04:13:48PM -0500, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:

Yes.  I do
  telinit 1
  mount -o remount,ro /
before running 'dd'.

Remounting read only will work but that is not what you said to do.
You will need to make sure all file systems are remounted read only.
It will work but could have you taking your system offline for quite a while
to do the full copy if you have something like a 10TB drive.

Our audience is GTALUG members, so they know what we're talking about.
:-)  I have everything in one filesystem.  I do backup of that.  Then,
I take snapshots of the backup.
William, some of us GTALug members are nothing more than home desktop 
users. ;-)

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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread John Moniz via talk 

On 12/23/2016 04:11 PM, James Knott via talk wrote:

On 12/23/2016 12:11 PM, John Moniz via talk wrote:

I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a
backup to rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.

Well, you could probably pass on /dev/null.  ;-)


I always back up /dev/null because it never takes up any space. :-)
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 04:13:48PM -0500, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
> > Yes.  I do
> >  telinit 1
> >  mount -o remount,ro /
> > before running 'dd'.
> 
> Remounting read only will work but that is not what you said to do.
> You will need to make sure all file systems are remounted read only.
> It will work but could have you taking your system offline for quite a while
> to do the full copy if you have something like a 10TB drive.

Our audience is GTALUG members, so they know what we're talking about.
:-)  I have everything in one filesystem.  I do backup of that.  Then,
I take snapshots of the backup.
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Alvin Starr via talk 

On 12/23/2016 03:56 PM, William Park via talk wrote:

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 02:32:17PM -0500, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:

On 12/23/2016 02:21 PM, William Park via talk wrote:

My recommendations...

1.  Backup entire disk to another disk, verbatim.  That is,
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=10M

  First, you don't have to waste time figuring out what to back up.
  Second, if disk fails, you can just swap the disks, and copy over
  only the new files since last dd.

Generally this is a bad idea if your copying a live file system because you
end up with a disk image that is corrupted to some extent.

Yes.  I do
 telinit 1
 mount -o remount,ro /
before running 'dd'.


Remounting read only will work but that is not what you said to do.
You will need to make sure all file systems are remounted read only.
It will work but could have you taking your system offline for quite a 
while to do the full copy if you have something like a 10TB drive.





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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread James Knott via talk 
On 12/23/2016 12:11 PM, John Moniz via talk wrote:
> I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a
> backup to rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.

Well, you could probably pass on /dev/null.  ;-)
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 02:32:17PM -0500, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
> On 12/23/2016 02:21 PM, William Park via talk wrote:
> > My recommendations...
> > 
> > 1.  Backup entire disk to another disk, verbatim.  That is,
> > dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=10M
> > 
> >  First, you don't have to waste time figuring out what to back up.
> >  Second, if disk fails, you can just swap the disks, and copy over
> >  only the new files since last dd.
> Generally this is a bad idea if your copying a live file system because you
> end up with a disk image that is corrupted to some extent.

Yes.  I do 
telinit 1
mount -o remount,ro /
before running 'dd'.
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Re: [GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Alvin Starr via talk 
Many years ago I worked for a company that had a tape backup system they 
sold with their computers.


Due to a firmware screw up for fewmonths the backuptapes were written 
blank and thenwhen they were verified they verified as good.


Fortunatelynone of the banks that were using the systems had a problem 
in that few months.


In this case Schrödinger's backup was dead,alive and invisible.

Regular testing is important.



On 12/23/2016 03:36 PM, Mauro Souza wrote:
If you don't test, you will have a Schrödinger's backup: both valid 
and invalid at the same time, until you try a restore.


On Dec 23, 2016 6:20 PM, "Alvin Starr via talk" > wrote:


On 12/23/2016 02:59 PM, Stephen via talk wrote:

With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a
question I have had for some time.

Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are
rather easy to test.

But how do you test restoring a database?

I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.

But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without
clobbering the active database?

Thank you


you can recover on a different machine or start a second instance
of the database on different ports.
This is the kind of place where virtualization or containerization
comes in handy.

Testing your backups is always a good idea.

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Re: [GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Mauro Souza via talk 
If you don't test, you will have a Schrödinger's backup: both valid and
invalid at the same time, until you try a restore.

On Dec 23, 2016 6:20 PM, "Alvin Starr via talk"  wrote:

> On 12/23/2016 02:59 PM, Stephen via talk wrote:
>
> With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a question I have
> had for some time.
>
> Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are rather
> easy to test.
>
> But how do you test restoring a database?
>
> I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.
>
> But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without clobbering the
> active database?
>
> Thank you
>
> you can recover on a different machine or start a second instance of the
> database on different ports.
> This is the kind of place where virtualization or containerization comes
> in handy.
>
> Testing your backups is always a good idea.
>
> --
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Re: [GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Alvin Starr via talk 

On 12/23/2016 02:59 PM, Stephen via talk wrote:
With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a question I 
have had for some time.


Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are 
rather easy to test.


But how do you test restoring a database?

I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.

But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without clobbering 
the active database?


Thank you

you can recover on a different machine or start a second instance of the 
database on different ports.
This is the kind of place where virtualization or containerization comes 
in handy.


Testing your backups is always a good idea.

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Re: [GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Mauro Souza via talk 
Restore on another database? Or in a virtual machine? Or in a container?

On Dec 23, 2016 6:08 PM, "Dave Cramer via talk"  wrote:

> back it up on another machine
>
> Dave Cramer
>
> On 23 December 2016 at 14:59, Stephen via talk  wrote:
>
>> With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a question I
>> have had for some time.
>>
>> Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are rather
>> easy to test.
>>
>> But how do you test restoring a database?
>>
>> I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.
>>
>> But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without clobbering the
>> active database?
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> --
>> Stephen
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>
>
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Re: [GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Dave Cramer via talk 
back it up on another machine

Dave Cramer

On 23 December 2016 at 14:59, Stephen via talk  wrote:

> With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a question I have
> had for some time.
>
> Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are rather
> easy to test.
>
> But how do you test restoring a database?
>
> I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.
>
> But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without clobbering the
> active database?
>
> Thank you
>
> --
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[GTALUG] Testing Restore of mySQL Database

2016-12-23 Thread Stephen via talk 
With the discussion about backups, I would like to raise a question I 
have had for some time.


Having backups does no good if you cannot restore them. Files are rather 
easy to test.


But how do you test restoring a database?

I back it up with the usual tool. I have the docs to do the restore.

But how to test to make sure that restoring works, without clobbering 
the active database?


Thank you

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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Howard Gibson via talk 
On Fri, 23 Dec 2016 12:11:15 -0500
John Moniz via talk  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine 
> tune the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to 
> bother to backup on the /home directory.

John,

   I back up my entire /home directory every night.  I also back up /etc, /root 
and /usr/local, but very much less frequently.  My backup device is a 4TB hard 
drive.  Periodically, I burn my /home backup to Blu-ray.  If I have to recover 
something, I use my latest backup.  I have written a backup script that uses 
tar.  

   KISS. 

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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Alvin Starr via talk 

On 12/23/2016 02:21 PM, William Park via talk wrote:

My recommendations...

1.  Backup entire disk to another disk, verbatim.  That is,
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=10M

 First, you don't have to waste time figuring out what to back up.
 Second, if disk fails, you can just swap the disks, and copy over
 only the new files since last dd.
Generally this is a bad idea if your copying a live file system because 
you end up with a disk image that is corrupted to some extent.




2.  Backup entire /home to another disk.  That is,
mount /home/sdZ /mnt/home
rsync -aHxv -SAX /home/ /mnt/home/ --delete --exclude='/*/.gvfs'

 Again, I would copy the whole things.  If you have somethings that
 you don't want to backup, then you can put them in
 /home/dont_backup, and add it to exclude list,
--exclude='/dont_backup'
If your keeping rsync backups make sure you have some way to rotate the 
backups so you have more than just 1.
A single backup only works when the oops/problem... happened since the 
last backup and you catch it before the next backup.




3.  If your /home is on BTRFS filesystem, you can take snapshots, like
btrfs subvolume snapshot -r home home--$(date +%F)

 Harddisk is "cheap", and snapshot is "cheaper".

LVM snapshots are also handy.
It will be nice when btrfs becomes the linux default file system because 
the snapshot feature is just so damn handy.


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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Mauro Souza via talk 
I use backintime for my local backups. It keeps history of files, so even
if you accidentally alter a file and discovers a month later, you can
recover the last version.
If you have a VPS somewhere, like me, you can use syncthing or owncloud
too. They are very good for backups.

I keep a local backintime backup, rsync to a raspberry pi every night, and
sync it to the VPS every week.

On Dec 23, 2016 5:21 PM, "William Park via talk"  wrote:

> My recommendations...
>
> 1.  Backup entire disk to another disk, verbatim.  That is,
> dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=10M
>
> First, you don't have to waste time figuring out what to back up.
> Second, if disk fails, you can just swap the disks, and copy over
> only the new files since last dd.
>
> 2.  Backup entire /home to another disk.  That is,
> mount /home/sdZ /mnt/home
> rsync -aHxv -SAX /home/ /mnt/home/ --delete --exclude='/*/.gvfs'
>
> Again, I would copy the whole things.  If you have somethings that
> you don't want to backup, then you can put them in
> /home/dont_backup, and add it to exclude list,
> --exclude='/dont_backup'
>
> 3.  If your /home is on BTRFS filesystem, you can take snapshots, like
> btrfs subvolume snapshot -r home home--$(date +%F)
>
> Harddisk is "cheap", and snapshot is "cheaper".
> --
> William
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 12:11:15PM -0500, John Moniz via talk wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine
> tune
> > the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to bother to
> > backup on the /home directory.
> >
> > I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out the
> man
> > page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the following
> on
> > my exclude_list.txt:
> > (Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each
> line
> > in the file only has one item)
> >
> > tmp* TMP*
> > .cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
> > .cookies* cookies*
> > Trash Trash* TRASH*
> > Junk* junk*
> > .gvfs
> > Backups backups
> > Crash*
> > .xsession-errors*
> > .macromedia
> > .thumbnails
> > .mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
> > *.corrupt
> > minidumps
> > .local/share/gvfs*
> >
> > I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a
> backup to
> > rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.
> >
> > Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of
> /home? I
> > am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make it easier to
> > recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.
> >
> > Thanks for any advice.
> >
> > John.
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread William Park via talk 
My recommendations...

1.  Backup entire disk to another disk, verbatim.  That is,
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=10M

First, you don't have to waste time figuring out what to back up.
Second, if disk fails, you can just swap the disks, and copy over
only the new files since last dd.

2.  Backup entire /home to another disk.  That is,
mount /home/sdZ /mnt/home
rsync -aHxv -SAX /home/ /mnt/home/ --delete --exclude='/*/.gvfs'

Again, I would copy the whole things.  If you have somethings that
you don't want to backup, then you can put them in
/home/dont_backup, and add it to exclude list,
--exclude='/dont_backup'

3.  If your /home is on BTRFS filesystem, you can take snapshots, like
btrfs subvolume snapshot -r home home--$(date +%F)

Harddisk is "cheap", and snapshot is "cheaper".
-- 
William


On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 12:11:15PM -0500, John Moniz via talk wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine tune
> the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to bother to
> backup on the /home directory.
> 
> I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out the man
> page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the following on
> my exclude_list.txt:
> (Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each line
> in the file only has one item)
> 
> tmp* TMP*
> .cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
> .cookies* cookies*
> Trash Trash* TRASH*
> Junk* junk*
> .gvfs
> Backups backups
> Crash*
> .xsession-errors*
> .macromedia
> .thumbnails
> .mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
> *.corrupt
> minidumps
> .local/share/gvfs*
> 
> I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a backup to
> rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.
> 
> Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of /home? I
> am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make it easier to
> recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.
> 
> Thanks for any advice.
> 
> John.
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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Alvin Starr via talk 

On 12/23/2016 12:11 PM, John Moniz via talk wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine 
tune the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to 
bother to backup on the /home directory.


I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out 
the man page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the 
following on my exclude_list.txt:
(Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each 
line in the file only has one item)


tmp* TMP*
.cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
.cookies* cookies*
Trash Trash* TRASH*
Junk* junk*
.gvfs
Backups backups
Crash*
.xsession-errors*
.macromedia
.thumbnails
.mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
*.corrupt
minidumps
.local/share/gvfs*

I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a 
backup to rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.


Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of 
/home? I am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make 
it easier to recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.


Thanks for any advice.

Take a look at rdiff-backup I prefer it over rsync because it keeps a 
history as diffs from the current backup.
Backups are not just disaster recovery sometimes you need to go back a 
week to find that file you accidentally deleted.


As a rule I do full backups because I have been burned by backing up 
just the "critical" information only to find that there was other 
information pushed all over the system.


Database backups need to be handled somewhat special because most 
databases do not guarantee that the binary file backup will not be 
corrupted  if the server is active while the data is being backed up.


I will exclude things like /tmp and /var/tmp but I make sure I keep the 
/var/log/* files because the log files are the first thing someone who 
compromises your system will delete.


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Re: [GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread Giles Orr via talk 
On 23 December 2016 at 12:11, John Moniz via talk  wrote:
> I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine tune
> the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to bother to
> backup on the /home directory.
>
> I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out the man
> page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the following on
> my exclude_list.txt:
> (Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each line
> in the file only has one item)
>
> tmp* TMP*
> .cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
> .cookies* cookies*
> Trash Trash* TRASH*
> Junk* junk*
> .gvfs
> Backups backups
> Crash*
> .xsession-errors*
> .macromedia
> .thumbnails
> .mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
> *.corrupt
> minidumps
> .local/share/gvfs*
>
> I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a backup to
> rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.
>
> Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of /home? I
> am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make it easier to
> recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.
>
> Thanks for any advice.

If you only have very limited space for backups, that looks like a
pretty good list (very similar to one I had a few years back).  If you
can afford it, I'd recommend just backing up your entire /home/ (and
rsync is a great way to do it).  It's easier because A) you don't have
to maintain that list of exceptions, and B) you don't find out AFTER
your HD crashes that you really did need that .cookies folder to get
back into your bank's account page.  That latter is just a random
example: if you don't back it all up, you'll find out that you needed
something that's no longer there.

Several further recommendations:
- if you have a directory full of Linux ISOs (as I suspect many of us
do), that's a good directory to not back up ... unless you
custom-build them
- back up /etc/ in its entirety
- back up /var/ if you have the space - /var/ is usually small,
although Apt, Docker, and possibly your web server are given to
seriously fattening it up
- the options I use for local copies with rsync are: "--verbose
--recursive --update --times --progress --stats --delete --perms
--hard-links --links" (not necessarily right for you, but may help)
- use the long-form options in scripts: it's a LOT easier to read and
remember what you were trying to achieve
- keep at least three rotating backups, preferably one off-site
- keep your backups on encrypted media if you can

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
giles...@gmail.com
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[GTALUG] What Not To Backup

2016-12-23 Thread John Moniz via talk 

Hi everyone,

I'm backing up my system on a more regular basis and am trying to fine 
tune the files that I backup. I am looking for advice on what NOT to 
bother to backup on the /home directory.


I am using rsync (took a long time and lots of trials to figure out the 
man page - and still don't know 90% of it) and presently have the 
following on my exclude_list.txt:
(Note: multiple items shown on one line are just for readability, each 
line in the file only has one item)


tmp* TMP*
.cache* cache* Cache* CACHE* *CACHE *Cache *cache
.cookies* cookies*
Trash Trash* TRASH*
Junk* junk*
.gvfs
Backups backups
Crash*
.xsession-errors*
.macromedia
.thumbnails
.mozilla/firefox/*/thumbnails
*.corrupt
minidumps
.local/share/gvfs*

I'd love to exclude things that perhaps one would never use from a 
backup to rebuild a system after an accidental clean wipe of all data.


Similarly, any recommendations of what I should back up outside of 
/home? I am thinking of things like /etc/fstab, files that would make it 
easier to recover from a crash or to upgrade a distro.


Thanks for any advice.

John.
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