Re: [opensuse] Suggestions for backup software?

Stan Goodman wrote:
On Monday 31 March 2008 00:47:20 Sandy Drobic wrote:
Stan Goodman wrote:
I would be grateful for advice about backup software appropriate for
my situation, and for remarks people using such utilities, including
what to avoid. I can see that there are several packages available
through YaST, but it would be helpful to know what others think about
them and about relative advantages.

I have only one Linux system here, so network capability is not
important. I do not have a tape drive, but would be read carefully
any remarks about whether I need one. If not, then it would have to
be something capable of bridging DVDs for a total backup, and probably CDs for incremental backup.
Use a second hdd and rsnapshot. It is cheap, reliable, effective, will
give redundant backups and you can run it as a cronjob, meaning that
you won't have to do it manually.

The initial setup is rather straight-forward.

What software do you suggest for doing this? That is what is foremost on my mind at this stage.


Stan,

At home I have an old file server running 10.0 and all you need is rsync that is already installed on your system. I just back up the data I need to protect. Mostly family pictures and family videos, etc... as well as my /home directory where all the stuff I have squirreled away over the years sits. I also have the home server pull a remote copy of my office files to provide a remote backup in case the building burns down. I do it this way:

The server in question spins 3 250G drives with sda being the drive with the OS install and the primary copy of the data. I use rsync to pull from the office and then use rsync again to mirror the data to sdb and sdc (triple redundant). At the office I do the same thing with local mirrors there as well. There is nothing special about this other than it works for me.

The way I set up rsync is to set up a primary script that calls rsync which then reads a second file to get a list of directories to back up. That way I just add or delete files I want backed up in the second file.

The primary rsync script for local backup, named "rsynclocal", is - are you ready:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avr --files-from=/home/david/Documents/scripts/localfiles / /data/storage/local
rsync -av --delete /home/samba/computer /data/storage

(There are only 2 lines in case word wrap breaks it)

The first rsync call says "-avr" (a) copy and preserve file and directory user and ownership, (v) verbose output (so I see what took place in my email from cron) (r) ** required for recursive copy WHEN reading input files from a second file. Normally (a) implies recursive EXCEPT when sourcing input from a second file.

The "--files-from=/home/david/Documents/scripts/localfiles" says read what to copy from that file. The "/" says use the root directory as the base for the file and directories contained in "localfiles" and "/data/storage/local" says use that as the base for the target locations where the files and directories will be copied to.

sdb is mounted as /data/media
sdc is mounted as /data/storage

The contents of "localfiles" is simply:

/home/david/Documents
/home/samba/egw3111

Which is just says take my Documents directory and the second directory and back them up.

The second line with --delete included in the command line just says do the backup as normal, but delete any files at the backup location that I have deleted from the primary data files.

The second script I have for the photos and videos is simply:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -avr --files-from=/home/david/Documents/scripts/mediafiles / /data/storage/

Where media files is currently:

/data/media

Here we are simply mirroring the photos and videos on sdb (/data/media) to sdc (/data/storage). In its present form, there is no reason to have it split as it would be simpler just to do it all from the rsyncmedia script, but I never know where my wife is going to save pictures to so I keep the flexibility.

In my opinion for local or remote backup, rsync is the only way to go. It's fast as heck, supports file differencing (this allows the 8 Gig I backup from work to be checked and pulled over a 256K upstream connection in about 10 minutes or less because it is only pulling the changed portions of files that averages 10-20 meg per day. rsync is well documented and put out by the same folks that give us samba. (see http://rsync.samba.org/ )

With just a little or no effort and a little time to learn, you can set up a backup scheme for anything in minutes. cron runs the whole operation from simple entries in "crontab -e" (I use root's crontab to avoid any permission problems) The crontab entries are simply:

0 4 * * * /home/david/Documents/scripts/rsyncwork
15 4 * * * /home/david/Documents/scripts/rsynclocal
30 4 * * * /home/david/Documents/scripts/rsyncmedia

I still use the same old script for pulling the work files that I put together years ago before I had a clue about shell programming (it will be apparent from the file). I use secure key authentication to automate to remote login/data exchange. The script I use for work, that has basic logging and produces a brief email to me is (for the sake of completeness):

#!/bin/bash
DATE=`date`
echo $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
echo --- starting backup of workfiles >> /home/david/rsync.log
echo --- the work files to be backed up are: >> /home/david/rsync.log
cat /home/david/Documents/scripts/workfiles >> /home/david/rsync.log
#if /usr/bin/rsync -rze ssh --delete --files-from=/home/david/Documents/scripts/workfiles david@xxxxxxxxxx:/home/samba/ /home/samba/law
if /usr/bin/rsync -arze ssh --delete --files-from=/home/david/Documents/scripts/workfiles david@xxxxxxxxxx:/home/samba/ /home/samba/law
then
echo .... Rankin Law Firm backup ------------- [OK] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup completed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup complete at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup complete on `date`" david@nemesis
else
echo .... Rankin Law Firm backup ------------- [Failed] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup failed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup failed at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup failed on `date`" david@nemesis

fi
echo --- starting backup of work web site files >> /home/david/rsync.log
echo --- the web site files to be backed up are: >> /home/david/rsync.log
cat /home/david/Documents/scripts/workwebfiles >> /home/david/rsync.log
if /usr/bin/rsync -aze ssh --delete david@xxxxxxxxxx:/srv/www/vhosts /home/david/Documents/bonza_backup/srv/www
then
echo .... Web Site backup ------------- [OK] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup completed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup complete at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup complete on `date`" david@nemesis
else
echo .... Web Site backup ------------- [Failed] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup failed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup failed at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup failed on `date`" david@nemesis

fi
echo --- starting backup of david/Mail >> /home/david/rsync.log
if /usr/bin/rsync -aze ssh --delete david@xxxxxxxxxx:/home/david/Mail/ /home/david/Documents/bonza_backup/Mail
then
echo .... david/Mail backup ------------- [OK] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup completed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup complete at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup complete on `date`" david@nemesis
else
echo .... david/Mail backup ------------- [Failed] >> /home/david/rsync.log
DATE=`date`
echo .... Backup failed at $DATE >> /home/david/rsync.log
# echo Backup failed at `date` on nemesis | mail -s "backup failed on `date`" david@nemesis

fi

The workfiles are simply:

office
rankin
joint/rankinguillory
joint/rankinbertin
joint/rankinallen
joint/rga
forms
computer/hardware
computer/software
closed/rankin
closed/rb
closed/rg
egwfiles/backup
egwfiles/mydms
scans

and workweb files are:

bertin
drr
rlf
txu

As you can see, rsync can be a basic or robust as you want to make it and it is absolutely simple to learn. Just play with rsync from the command line until you have it doing what you want and then just throw the working command line in a script file and add a crontab entry and you are done. Just check you email the next day for the warm fuzzy that it worked and then forget about it. Burn a DVD or two every so often to prevent against the worst and your done.

The only addition I would make to what I do is to add a line or two that bzips a current snapshot of the backup in case the primary copy of the data got fried and it daisy chained through the rsync system corrupting the backup copies as well. That's what the DVD's you burned of the data are for. Now that I'm thinking about it, I guess I better go burn a couple DVD's. Have fun.




--
David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com
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