Backup programs

I am scowering freshmeat right now, but I though maybe there would be
some ideas here as well since there are 100's of programs in my search.

I want a total backup solution. Preferably something that can create a
total drive backup onto bootable restore CDs but can also handle
incrimental additions. So to restore from total system failure I could
put the backup CD into a new computer, boot it up, restore, then
restore the incrementals...boot up and be relatively back where I
began.

Is there anything out there that behaves like that or similarly?

Like I said, 100's of choices in freshmeat, but most don't look like
they do anywhere near all those things.

In comp.os.linux.networking Noah Roberts <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> I am scowering freshmeat right now, but I though maybe there would be
> some ideas here as well since there are 100's of programs in my search.

> I want a total backup solution. Preferably something that can create a
> total drive backup onto bootable restore CDs but can also handle
> incrimental additions. So to restore from total system failure I could
> put the backup CD into a new computer, boot it up, restore, then
> restore the incrementals...boot up and be relatively back where I
> began.

You can always keep a dd copy of the complete root disk on
another system, boot from some knoppix and play it back using
netcat over the LAN.

> Is there anything out there that behaves like that or similarly?

Dunno, haven't heard about some "all in one" solution. For
disaster recovery presuming you have always more then one system
which are more or less the same and those use hard/soft-raid 1 on
the root disk.

The fasts seems to split a hard (not all controller allow this)
raid or a soft-raid this works always (all disk hot-pluggable) from
a similar system while running put it in the other box and boot
to run level s. Change the relevant info (hostname/nic/etc), good
idea to keep a recent tarball of /etc on the other system so you
can play back ssh host-keys.

Now you can reboot and bring the system back online, put in the
missing drives in both and let the arrays sync again while
services are running.

Another idea, if systems aren't duplicate, get some cheapo large
usb hd and use rsync to backup to the usb hd, this should be
quite fast after the initial rsync, or through another system with
netcat/ssh over the LAN.

For usual file backups, found legato networker quite convenient,
it comes with GUI and CLI file/dir recover tools, it's not really
cheap but worth a look at, if you have more then a few dozens
boxes.

For a few systems, you want/need to backup to tape, self written
scripts using tar/ssh work quite fine, once you get behind the
trick keeping a file -> tape-block list and using 'mt' probably to
seek to the file(s) you want to recover in a few seconds.

Wouldn't run a system for serious usage without raid 1 on the
root disk, hard/soft-raid hot-pluggable or not depends on the
downtime you can afford and the money you can/want to spend of
course. Downtime in the worst case, disks not hot-pluggable is
perhaps 5-10 minutes which can be scheduled a bit, unlikely that
the second hd will brake in the next few hours. The thing braking
mostly are for sure hds, the question isn't if, only when.

Port Status Unit Size
---------------------------------------
p0 OK u0 74.53 GB
p1 OK u0 74.53 GB

Na, looks good.

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 369: Virus transmitted from computer to sysadmins.

Michael Heiming wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.networking Noah Roberts <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> > I am scowering freshmeat right now, but I though maybe there would
be
> > some ideas here as well since there are 100's of programs in my
search.
>
> > I want a total backup solution. Preferably something that can
create a
> > total drive backup onto bootable restore CDs but can also handle
> > incrimental additions. So to restore from total system failure I
could
> > put the backup CD into a new computer, boot it up, restore, then
> > restore the incrementals...boot up and be relatively back where I
> > began.
>
> You can always keep a dd copy of the complete root disk on
> another system, boot from some knoppix and play it back using
> netcat over the LAN.
>
> > Is there anything out there that behaves like that or similarly?
>
> Dunno, haven't heard about some "all in one" solution. For
> disaster recovery presuming you have always more then one system
> which are more or less the same and those use hard/soft-raid 1 on
> the root disk.

What I am really trying to accomplish is to create a system of restore
for people who don't seem to know much about linux, or have time to
learn it. I need something simple, that I can write step by step
instructions for, that will recover onto a system that may or may not
be the same. Obviously I cannot account for everything, but I figured
something that would boot up and kind of automagically do as much as
possible would be best. But they are not idiots so maybe I don't need
to go so far.

> Another idea, if systems aren't duplicate, get some cheapo large
> usb hd and use rsync to backup to the usb hd, this should be
> quite fast after the initial rsync, or through another system with
> netcat/ssh over the LAN.

I do like this idea, and we have usb hard drive enclosures. Hopefully
they all work in linux...I haven't had much luck with usb devices and
linux.

Noah Roberts wrote:
> I am scowering freshmeat right now, but I though maybe there would be
> some ideas here as well since there are 100's of programs in my
search.
>
> I want a total backup solution. Preferably something that can create
a
> total drive backup onto bootable restore CDs but can also handle
> incrimental additions. So to restore from total system failure I
could
> put the backup CD into a new computer, boot it up, restore, then
> restore the incrementals...boot up and be relatively back where I
> began.
>
> Is there anything out there that behaves like that or similarly?
>
> Like I said, 100's of choices in freshmeat, but most don't look like
> they do anywhere near all those things.

Bacula?
http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/state.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2...09/bacula.html

Haven't used it in a production environment but I would probably look
here first if I had to deploy a network solution myself. I like it
better than the others I've investigated -- for the day I need to
provide a non-commercial solution.

regards,
prg
email above dsiabled

PS: I ought to post my failures re: Mcafee AV installation. Later
today?

In comp.os.linux.networking Noah Roberts <(E-Mail Removed)>:

> Michael Heiming wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.networking Noah Roberts <(E-Mail Removed)>:
>> > I am scowering freshmeat right now, but I though maybe there would
> be
>> > some ideas here as well since there are 100's of programs in my
> search.
>>
>> > I want a total backup solution. Preferably something that can
[..]

> What I am really trying to accomplish is to create a system of restore
> for people who don't seem to know much about linux, or have time to
> learn it. I need something simple, that I can write step by step
> instructions for, that will recover onto a system that may or may not
> be the same. Obviously I cannot account for everything, but I figured
> something that would boot up and kind of automagically do as much as
> possible would be best. But they are not idiots so maybe I don't need
> to go so far.

Assuming from your answer you don't have some kind of root raid
available? You really need a pretty good disaster recover and
perhaps rethink it, you can mirror an already installed system
with soft-raid and a few hw raid controller allow this.

>> Another idea, if systems aren't duplicate, get some cheapo large
>> usb hd and use rsync to backup to the usb hd, this should be
>> quite fast after the initial rsync, or through another system with
>> netcat/ssh over the LAN.

> I do like this idea, and we have usb hard drive enclosures. Hopefully
> they all work in linux...I haven't had much luck with usb devices and
> linux.

Depends on hw/kernel, you might find server mobo with quite buggy
usb chip-sets. Consumer mobo tend to work better, had no problems
with them and use quite a few usb devices.

You need at least USB2 for any reasonable speed, recovering over
the LAN (presuming at least switched 100Mbit/sec) should be
faster and you only need to have one box with working USB2
holding the (gziped) images of all systems. Needs some testing to
get reasonable speed using dd+netcat, but should be fairly easy
to put in a howto. Recovering shouldn't require much knowledge,
put some screen shots in the howto and outline how long recovery
might take. Use knoppix or alike as rescue system with full blown
KDE, people not used to linux tend to get nervous if you leave
them with a VT.

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 120: we just switched to FDDI.