[TriLUG] backup methodology

Mike M linux-support at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 20 19:37:59 EST 2003


On Thursday 20 February 2003 17:13, Jeremy Portzer wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-02-20 at 17:05, Jason Tower wrote:
> > as long as it's only a couple of gigs, and it's only moving across the
> > lan, i wouldn't bother with tar/incremental backups unless space on the
> > backup server is really tight.  using the rsync method that jeremy linked
> > to earlier is probably the best bet, or just copy the files directly if
> > you're really lazy like me.  make a seperate directory for each day of
> > the week and use a cron job to copy data to the appropriate directory on
> > the appropriate day. that way if you need to restore a file from three
> > days ago you can do it in about three seconds.  if you have the space for
> > it save the friday directories and rotate them so you always have three
> > or four, that way you can go back a month or so if necessary.
>
> Just to make sure people noticed -- that "rsback" script that I
> mentioned (based on the rsync article) does this exact thing -- takes
> snapshots for each day, allowing you to access previous versions.  The
> nice thing is that it uses hard links for files that haven't changed, so
> a lot of space is saved.  And since rsync is used, files that haven't
> changed aren't copied, saving time and network bandwidth.  It's really
> very easy to set up.   I'm testing this on the TriLUG backup server now.

Thanks.  It's another productive day at TriLUG.
>
> For even more space savings, look into "rdiff-backup" which only stores
> deltas (differences) between files, but it does require a special
> utility to recover the files.

I'm usually hyperventilating by the time I realize I need a backup.  I think 
I'll pay the cost of increased storage room.. The rsync feature of copying 
only what's changed should work out very well.
-- 
Mike M.



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