On Wed, 2010-04-14 at 06:43 -0500, oiaohm wrote:
> My warning about root was not to do with what cron can and cannot do.
> It directly links to what backup programs have to do.
>
How you handle backups depends on what medium you're backing up to.
* Amanda is worth a look if you're using tape.
* Mondo works OK if you're using DVD, though its fairly slow.
* If you're backing up to disk, consider using rsync (very fast) or
simply using a compressed tar backup. Either way, reformat the backup
disks as ext2 or ext3. Reasons for *not* backing up to VFAT disks are:
- if you're copying individual files (e.g. with rsync) the backed up
files will lose their ownership and access permissions
- VFAT disks have an absolute limet that no file can exceed 4GB. If
your compressed backups (tar or zip) exceed this limit and you
don't notice your backups will be incomplete
Amanda and Mondo may by now be able to back up to disk: they weren't
when I last used them.
I developed my own backups:
- daily, run by cron. Uses a bash script to keep daily compressed tar
files on a USB drive, deleting enough of the oldest tar file(s) to
make room for the current backup. Currently takes 90 mins to make a
12 GB backup.
- weekly, run manually. Uses a bash script wrapper round rsync.
Typically takes 8-10 mins to back up the whole system to a USB
drive, though the initial backup took 2 hours: rsync just backs up
changes since the last time it was run.
Martin
