Re: Backups - was: Re: LVM
On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 06:49:25PM +0100, Lisi wrote:
> On Tuesday 15 June 2010 18:06:51 Camaleón wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:48:04 +0100, Lisi wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 15 June 2010 14:40:44 Camaleón wrote:
> > >> I would differentiate between "backup" data and "archived" data.
> >
> > (...)
> >
> > > Thanks for this. I was originally responding to Andrew's saying:
> > > <quote>
> > > There are many many ways to make take backups beyond having a disk big
> > > enough to hold the data.
> > > </quote>
> > >
> > > I can think of very few - and was interested in what he was thinking of.
> > > Incremental/differential backups are not really practical, since she
> > > will be at school.
> >
> > Why not practical? Just curious O:-)
>
> Because I shan't have hold of the computer for long enough or often enough!
>
> > > A periodic dd (or Clonezilla?) of the whole drive
> > > and more frequent updates of her personal data (of which I understand
> > > that there is not much) would be the optimum, but a trifle pricey, so I
> > > am still looking at alternative possibilities.
> >
> > The main drawback I see for "dd" or "clonezilla" is that they are very
> > "slowness". It takes much time (and space!) to make a full copy (or
> > image) of the disk and so not very practical because at last the user
> > stops doing the backup on a regular basis :-(
>
> The user isn't going to do the backup on a (frequent) regular basis anyway.
> What I am hoping is to be able to dd (or Clonezilla or something) the drive
> periodically and take a snapshot of the state of the machine at that point.
> That will catch all the slow moving/changing files and facilitate a simple
> restoration if needed. With luck, her personal stuff will fit on a CD or
> two. Or, since we are anyway assuming that I shall be able to find the
> money, I may get her a DVD RW. That she might do reasonably often.
>
> Another possibility that I haven't yet explored is to get a NAS or something
> and back all of our machines up to it.
>
Have you investigated BackupPC? It's a pretty slick program, available
in the Debian repos. It can use rsync, tar, or smb as its transfer
mechanism. Rsync of course is best for over the internet backups,
because it minimizes bandwidth usage.
It pools common files, so the
storage requirements per machine go down as you back up more and more
machines. (If you both have a copy of the same JPEG on your machines,
BackupPC will only keep one copy, but it knows that it belongs to both
of you).
It runs automatically, but not through cron. It will retry backups if
the host machine (the one it's trying to back up) is disconnected from
the network.
The remote user's machine should run sshd and wait for BackupPC to
connect. Alternatively, the remote user's machine can ssh to the
BackupPC machine and set up a tunnel using reverse port forwarding. Or
you could use a VPN.
I use BackupPC to back up all my own computers, plus my parents', my
sister's, and a friend's. Most of them probably don't even remember
that they are being backed up, because it requires no interaction on
their part.
-Rob
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