Re: Recommendation: Backup system
On Saturday 01 October 2016 13:54:29 Clive Menzies wrote:
> On 01/10/16 18:40, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Saturday 01 October 2016 12:39:58 Clive Menzies wrote:
> >> Quick question. Are your backups incremental or complete every
> >> night?
> >
> > This is probably better explained in the manpages. Amanda has the
> > concept of doing a full backup of everything in its disklist
> > according to the days you give it. Amanda will then shuffle the
> > schedule such that those full backups are done at random in that
> > cycle, with an eye toward equalizing, as much as possible, the
> > amount of data saved during each run. It does this by advanceing the
> > the level 0's as it will not let a given file go beyond that cycle
> > before a full copy is made again. Level 0 is a full copy of a file,
> > level 1 is whats been changed in that file since the last level 0.
> > Level 2 is whats been changed since level 1, ad infinitum but most
> > useage never gets past level 2. I have the drive I use for amanda
> > setup as 30 virtual tapes, using one a day, then recycle. With 4
> > machines feeding amanda, that 1Tb drive stays at around 46% used:
> >
> > gene@coyote:~$ df /amandatapes
> > Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/sdc2 960798056 410555684 501429932 46% /amandatapes
> >
> > I stayed on the devel branch of amanda, playing the part of the
> > canary in the coal mine for years while it was being heavily
> > developed, but apparently that grant ran out so not a lot has
> > changed in around 5 years. So while I have a self made, slightly
> > newer version on this machine as master, v3.3.7p1, the slaves are
> > all running 3.3.1 clients from the wheezy repo. And it Just
> > Works(TM).
> >
> > I would be the first to point out that my way is NOT for archival
> > storage due to this 30 day and recycle setup. I could extend it to
> > 60 days on this drive I suppose, but this is not a business.
> >
> > For a business, I would include the price of the drive as a CODB,
> > fill it up and put it on the shelf at a remote location so it
> > doesn't all go up in smoke when the place burns, thereby giving me
> > the ability to recover something 5+ years old, or for however long
> > one has had that setup running.
> >
> > That $100 or less a month for a new commodity drive is far less of a
> > CODB than the archival storage of tapes would be over a 10 year
> > period. And you would have to add in that the tape drive(s) would be
> > out of service for about a month each annually while they spend the
> > holidays in Oklahoma City getting fresh heads and rubber at about a
> > kilobuck each for the rebuild. Thats been the track record here in
> > my usage of tapes. The hard drives all have been 10x (or) more
> > dependable.
> >
> > And all it takes is getting rid of the idea that one must do a full
> > backup on Friday nights. Yes, amanda can do that, but do it as a
> > separate configuration else you will drive the poor girl out of her
> > mind when she finds out all her carefully worked out plans have all
> > gone aglay.
> >
> > And don't forget that in ones long term business plans, the
> > technology changes with time and there will come a time when you
> > will have nothing in the house that can read todays 1Tb sata hard
> > drive. So having a storage location to save the old tech that can
> > read those drives should be part of that long term plan also. And
> > be damned hard headed about it.
>
> Thanks Gene
>
> A dozen years ago, we found a couple posts on incremental backups
> using rsync and adapted it to provide 6 months of rolling incremental
> backups. We've been running this setup ever since - automated nightly,
> incremental backups. I posted our notes on the installation earlier in
> this thread.
>
> All important stuff is kept on the servers but it would be good to
> backup the laptops/workstations too and maybe Amanda is the answer :-)
> We don't install GUIs on our servers; can this be managed from
> individual workstations?
>
> Regards
>
> Clive
The closest you'll get to a gui is using your fav text editor to
configure it. If building your own, the example directory has copies of
all that, very liberally commented. That may also be in the server deb,
but if I looked, I've forgotten what I found. Heck most of the time I
can't remember if I had breakfast this morning... Synaptic, once the
amanda server has been installed, will be more than happy to show you
what is available, and where it was put. There is also a mailing list,
at amanda.org with very knowledgable people to explain the fine details.
As for the other machines here that I backup every night, I only worry
about the directories that contain linuxcnc or rtapi stuff, all the rest
of it is no farther away than the install dvd from
www.linuxcnc.org/downloads if I can't find the written dvd. The amount
of data from each of those machines is maybe 25 megabytes each worst
case per nightly run, typically just 1 or 2 megs.
As for the gcode that drives LinuxCNC, I write the huge majority of what
I use, and I'm a huge fan of incremental loops. I tossed a thing
together in about 45 minutes this morning, about 50 LOC, which ran for
about 5 hours, digging the beginnings of a t-slot trench about 1.25"
wide, 3.5" long, and .7 inches deep, in a block of cast iron that will
eventually be the toolpost pad which mounts a quick change tool post on
an elderly Sheldon metal lathe. Once that was done, I drove it from the
keyboard to finish the upside down "T" up and the toolpost is actually
sitting bolted in place on it right now. Some folks call me a
j.o.a.t. ;-) And some call me other lesser terms. Shrug... At 82 in 3
more days, I am used to it.
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
Reply to: