Re: [gentoo-server] Backup software

[Nigel Marsh]

Jose,

My clients just have their data ( from apache/MySQL to mail and file servers ) 
backed up. I also backup essential stuff like the 
usual /etc, /usr/local, /boot, /var/spool/<whatever>, /var/lib/<whatever>, 
etc.

This means that on the  setups I have, I could not do a bare metal recovery on 
these but, that isn't to say that you couldn't do it with a suitable boot 
disk and a chroot.

when you use bbackupquery on the client machine for recovery you get a file 
structure like any file browser. You can traverse this with pretty much the 
same language as bash and ftp combined. If you backed up the entire root 
filesystem, with some exclusions and a couple of rules for Box Backup ( see 
below ), you would find yourself looking at a near replica of your filesytem.  
To retreive files or dirs you use a variation of the get command. If you add 
a couple of switches you can view files that the client has deleted or old 
versions of any files. 


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obvious exclutions like /proc and...
Box Backup doesn't back up across partions so, if you have / on hda3 and /home 
on hdc1, /home will need a seperate backup entry and / would need /home 
excluding from its setup. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is a sample extract from the client config for such a system.

BackupLocations
{
        /
        {
                Path = /
                ExcludeFile = /etc/box/bbackupd/001-FileEncKeys.raw
  ExcludeDir = /home
  ExcludeDir = /proc
  ExcludeDir = /var/run
        }
        home
        {
                Path = /home
        }
}

When you use the bbackupquery client from a nix client machine you will see 
something like......

query > ls
00000002 -d---- home
00000007 -d---- /
query >


as you can see, each seperate partition backed up is listed seperately 
and /home will not apperar within /

You can cd into any of these to burrow down. 

The Hex on the left is used if you have several versions of a file stored, 
with the same name you can select which one via its hex identifier.

The "-d----" shows the filetype flags , file, dir, deleted, old version.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As to reverting to a given date. The short answer (unusual for me ;)) is No...  
The longer answer is, according the developments on the mailing list it will 
do soon.


On the server side, you have no access to this data. You need to keep a client 
key safe to rebuild a totally dead client so that it can restore and start 
again where you left off.


Sorry, got carried away and probably went way over what was needed to answer 
your question. Must be this new coffee I'm drinking.  ;)

Nige


On Friday 22 Oct 2004 13:11, Jose Gonzalez Gomez wrote:
>     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

-- 
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
a new system.  For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.
		-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513