Re: [gentoo-server] Backup software

[Jose Gonzalez Gomez]

Nigel,

    There's something I don't understand in your setup. What does 
exactly boxbackup store in your backup server? Do you have an exact copy 
of the backed up system? Do you have the possibility of reverting the 
original system to its state on a given date?

    Best regards
    Jose

Nigel Marsh wrote:

>I don't know about better. Box backup means that my clients never have to
>change a tape, store it somewhere off site or even think about their backups.
>we take care of that on the server alone.
>
>It works a little like rsync so large files only have the changed section
>backed up as a patch. It can also be told to work like tape but I only ever
>use it in its lazy rsync style mode.
>
>A few points (in no particular order) that are expanded upon on the web site.
>http://www.fluffy.co.uk/boxbackup
>
>The data is encrypted over the wire:
>
>The data is encrypted in storage:
>clients don't need to trust us not to peek
>
>The compression ratio is fairly good:
>The first one I see before me here is a very small business with 23G of data.
>They are using 11G on the backup server.
>
>backups occur only when there is data to back up:
>By default the client checks for changes approximately every hour. If there is
>something new then it is backed up or if a file has changed then, the diff is
>backed up. The hourly backup means you get a small trickle of network usage
>rather than a deluge at set backup times.
>
>It uses system raid or will impliment its own userland raid.
>
>After the initial transfer, the data over the wire is minimal:
>As all my clients are backing up via adsl links, I do the initial backup on
>site with a clone of the main backup server ( a gentoo laptop with a firewire
>drive ) and then transfer this to the main server.
>
>Recovery is trivial and involves using an ftp like interface on the client.
>
>A native win32 client is currently in the works as is an OSX one.
>
>if for some reason the backup server is unavailable, the client will just keep
>trying every 5 minutes until it is.
>
>A client is allocated a soft and hard limit of space on the server. When the
>limit is reached the files are rotated with the oldest versions of a file
>being removed first.
>
>Old versions of your files are still available unless of course they have been
>removed during the rotation.
>
>Once set up, it is a no brainer. Watch the logs and get on with something more
>important.
>
>This backup server is behind a lowly 1Mb adsl link. It currently stores 200G
>of clients data and the trickle of backup traffic that comes over it doesn't
>even interupt a UT2K4 session.  ;)
>
>Well, that is my situation with this software. If you are interested in it, I
>would suggest that you join the mailing list. Ben is very accessible and is
>very open to questions and suggestions.
>
>I have been using this with my clients now for about 6 months and have not had
>a single problem.
>
>I would like to see a client ported to my zaurus. :)
>
>That may have been a little more than you asked for and I only just got around
>to answering the question about picking something not in portage.
>
>The install of this is so trivial that I cannot see it being in portage is any
>great advantage. You run the usual ./configure make make-backup-client 0r
>make-backup-server. The binaries are in /usr/loca/bin and it is time for the
>very simple setup.  If I get some time and noone beats me to it I may cut my
>ebuild teeth on this simple app.
>
>Nige.
>
>On Friday 22 Oct 2004 06:56, Ben Munat wrote:
>
>
>>Just out of curiosity, why pick something not in portage? Does it do
>>something better?
>>
>>Ben
>>
>>Nigel Marsh wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I recently came accross Box Backup and am very happy with it.
>>>
>>>http://www.fluffy.co.uk/boxbackup/
>>>
>>>On Wednesday 20 Oct 2004 17:48, Jose Gonzalez Gomez wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>   Hi there,
>>>>
>>>>   I sent this to the gentoo-user list without much success, I hope in
>>>>the server list there are more people doing backups... you know what
>>>>they say: "there are only two kind of people: those doing backups and
>>>>those that never lost any data". I hope I become one of the third kind,
>>>>those that never lost any data but are doing backups :o)
>>>>
>>>>   I'm searching for some backup software with the following
>>>>requirements:
>>>>
>>>>   * Capability to scale from a single machine to backups of full
>>>>networks, including heterogeneous OS (Linux, Windows,...)
>>>>   * Capability to do full or incremental backups
>>>>   * Network friendly (don't wanna have my network down because the
>>>>backup traffic ate all the bandwidth)
>>>>   * Possibility of using different backup media (tape, CD, DVD, HD,...)
>>>>   * Ease of maintenance and recovery, preferably with unattended
>>>>     operation (don't wanna be hanging around changing tapes)
>>>>   * Snapshot backups of live file systems (don't wanna have to stop my
>>>>     web/mail/database server to do the backup)
>>>>   * Ready to go (so please, don't tell me to use tar / cpio / mt)
>>>>   * Of course open source
>>>>
>>>>   After a preliminary search, I've found Amanda, Mondo Rescue and
>>>>Bacula, all of them in portage. I would like to hear experiences, and
>>>>thoughts about this.
>>>>
>>>>   Thanks in advance, best regards
>>>>   Jose
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
>