[TriLUG] rsync for Disaster Recovery?

[Rick DeNatale]

On 12/1/05, James Brigman <jbrigman at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> Is anyone on this list using rsync to transport their data for disaster
> recovery? I've seen some effective UNIX/Linux backups/archives done with
> rsync, but I'm wondering things like:
>
> - how well can it be integrated with CIFS/Windows systems? (have I gotta
> roll a SAMBA server to translate so that rsync "sees" the windows data?)
> - is it relatively fast over slow links?
> - how well does it work with "incremental changing" data? Can you
> emulate "snapshots", for example?
> - anyone have to "reverse" the direction of the rsync data flow to
> recover the data, and if so, how easy was it?
>
> Experienced replies welcome....

James,

You might want to have a look at backuppc.  It's a FOSS backup server
which can use rsync, or samba to backup both *nix and windoze
machines. It's pretty slick, it does daily full and incremental
backups in rotation, and it even handles backing up laptops and other
machines that come and go, doing the backups after hours for machines
which are available, and asap for machines which aren't there after
hours.

There are rsync implementations for windows, one runs in cygwin for
example, and backuppc works with those.

I use backuppc at home to backup severa machines, although for my
$wifes WinXP home box (our only windows box) I'm using samba instead
of rsync.  Backuppc talks directly to samba shares on the machine
being backed up.  I think that this differs from the other responses
you've gotten, which I think all are using rsync to backup data on a
samba server from which the windows machines store their data.

In my overall backup setup, I then archive the backuppc backups to a
separate disk using an rsync incremental backup system I based on the
backup presentation that Jeremy and Jason gave to Trilug around a year
ago.

Not exactly a direct answer to your question, but you or someone else
might find some useful info buried in my ramblings! <G>
--
Rick DeNatale

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