[TriLUG] Linux Backup Strategies

[Aaron S. Joyner]

Samba is plenty-capable of handling >2GB files - I use the functionality 
on a regular basis.  On the other hand, if the underlying filesystem can 
not, things can get ugly.  As long as you're on a modern filesystem in 
Linux (ext3, reiser, etc), with a reasonably recent version of samba 
(>2.0) then you should not run into a 2GB file size limitations.  If 
that's not the case, do let us know.

Aaron S. Joyner


Brian Henning wrote:

>...so then has the 2GB single-file size smb 'bug' been fixed?  I recall many
>moments of frustration surrounding a similar project, where the smb transfer
>seemed to stall (read: everything ground to a halt), and I found that the
>reason was that smb puked on files larger than 2 gigabytes..  I don't know
>if that's still an issue, but if it is, you'll need to use a utility (or
>tar's built-in ability) to segment your images into <2GB chunks.  (Be aware
>that, as far as my limited knowledge goes, tar's volume-sizing ability does
>not include sequential naming, so you'll have to wrap it in some other
>script to rename each chunk after tar finishes with it)
>
>Cheers,
>~Brian
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Aaron S. Joyner" <aaron at joyner.ws>
>To: "Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list" <trilug at trilug.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 7:37 AM
>Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Linux Backup Strategies
>
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>>dd if=/dev/hda of=/path/to/samba/share/image.dmg
>>
>>To dump a full-sized image of your disc to the samba share, the above
>>command will do the trick.  On the other hand, if you'd prefer a more
>>elegant solution (which only works over ftp) check out the g4u package.
>>If space over speed is a concern, you can also compress the image like so:
>>
>>dd if=/dev/hda | gzip > /path/to/samba/share/image.dmg
>>
>>As an additional concern, if you'd like not to take up more space in the
>>image than necessary, at the expense of not being able to "undelete"
>>anything you may have already deleted (not such a big concern, imho) -
>>you can clear out all of the once-used space on the drive, like this...
>>
>>dd if=/dev/zero of=/zerofile.tmp ; rm /zerofile.tmp
>>
>>If you have more than one partition, you'll need to create a zero file
>>like the one above, for each partition.  A bash script to automate that
>>based on /etc/fstab shouldn't be more than about 6 lines.  Keep in mind,
>>that of course if you have more than one disc in the computer you'll
>>need to do it for each disc, and of course you may need to adjust the
>>/dev/hda references above if you're not using a single ide drive located
>>as the primary master.
>>
>>Personally, I wouldn't do it image-style as this suggests.  I would use
>>tar or dump, as it creates a more concise image, and gives you the
>>flexibility of doing incrementals in the future.  Also, tar or dump will
>>give you the ability to easily do individual file restore.  As another
>>step in the direction of elegance, Jeremy presented on rsync backups
>>using rsbackup at the May meeting.  It's yet another "better" solution,
>>although depending on your purposes it may be cumbersome over smb.
>>
>>All of this was covered in Jeremy's and Jason's recent backup
>>presentation.  The presentation itself should be searchable in the
>>archives, sometime around the 2nd tuesday of May.  Hope that's a start!
>>    
>>
>:)
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>
>>Aaron S. Joyner
>>
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