From: Michael Satterwhite [mailto:satterwh@weblore.com] Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 8:02 AM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: [SLE] Backups - How to

I'm now running my main box on Linux more than on Windows. My daily backups seem problematic, though.

I have a Travan-5 tape drive that I use for backup. Every week, I backup the entire system to tape. On the other days, I backup everything that changed since the last full backup. I have this set to run (Windows) unattended at midnight, I just change tapes. Tapes are rotated, giving me the ability to get files back at any day over the last month.

What can be used to accomplish this on Linux? Backup is a critical operation; I firmly believe that those who don't follow good backup procedures deserve what is inevitably going to happen.

Cron and tar. Tar can also do incremental backups, but if you can fit the whole system on one tape, no need to do incremental, unless speed is a factor. -- Chris Geske LIMS Manager / Northern Lake Service, Inc. email: lims@newnorth.net

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Geske" To: Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 9:56 AM Subject: RE: [SLE] Backups - How to

Cron and tar. Tar can also do incremental backups, but if you can fit the whole system on one tape, no need to do incremental, unless speed is a factor.

Please forgive a Linux newbie's ignorance on this one. Tar can do backups to a Travan tape? I'm really impressed. What do I need to do to set it up? Thanks much. ---Michael

----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Geske" To: Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 9:56 AM Subject: RE: [SLE] Backups - How to

...

Cron and tar. Tar can also do incremental backups, but if you can fit the whole system on one tape, no need to do incremental, unless speed is a factor.

Please forgive a Linux newbie's ignorance on this one. Tar can do backups to a Travan tape? I'm really impressed. What do I need to do to set it up?

Thanks much. ---Michael

I think it can do travan tapes. I've only worked with scsi dat tapes. If you have it hooked up, and the kernel finds it and gives it a name such as /dev/st0 (check /var/log/boot.msg), then you just have to do: tar pcvbf 20 /dev/st0 PATH-TO-FILES-TO-BACKUP if you want whole system backup do: cd / tar pcvbf 20 /dev/st0 . Put your commands in a script and make it executable, then setup cron to run the script at whatever times you want. It wouldn't hurt to read the man on tar, theirs a billion ways to run it, and a blocking factor of 20 may not work for you. -- Chris Geske LIMS Manager / Northern Lake Service, Inc. ph: 715-478-2777 email: lims@newnorth.net

In a previous message, zentara wrote:

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 16:30:05 GMT John Pettigrew wrote:

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Is there any reason to use anything more complicated than the backup tool in YaST? For that matter, what does this actually do? I've failed to find any documentation about it.

Ha ha, "what does it do? No docs". That's why I don't use it. :-)

Yeesss. Did seem a bit odd that there were no docs - any advice from SuSE types? Not much use having a backup util that people don't feel confident using - that's the whole point of backup up! John -- John Pettigrew Headstrong Games john@headstrong-games.co.uk Fun : Strategy : Price http://www.headstrong-games.co.uk/ Board games that won't break the bank Knossos: escape the ever-changing labyrinth before the Minotaur catches you!

...

...

Cron and tar. Tar can also do incremental backups, but if you can fit the whole system on one tape, no need to do incremental, unless speed is a factor.

Please forgive a Linux newbie's ignorance on this one. Tar can do backups to a Travan tape? I'm really impressed. What do I need to do to set it up?

Thanks much. ---Michael

I think it can do travan tapes. I've only worked with scsi dat tapes. If you have it hooked up, and the kernel finds it and gives it a name such as /dev/st0 (check /var/log/boot.msg), then you just have to do:

tar pcvbf 20 /dev/st0 PATH-TO-FILES-TO-BACKUP

if you want whole system backup do:

cd / tar pcvbf 20 /dev/st0 .

I have a SCSI travan, and yes, this is exactly how I use tar to backup to it. Josh

Put your commands in a script and make it executable, then setup cron to run the script at whatever times you want.

It wouldn't hurt to read the man on tar, theirs a billion ways to run it, and a blocking factor of 20 may not work for you.

On Friday 14 February 2003 6:02 am, Michael Satterwhite wrote:

I'm now running my main box on Linux more than on Windows. My daily backups seem problematic, though. [...]

This isn't an exact answer, but a couple of things to consider. One of the guys in my linux group, Mike Rubel, wrote up a method of using rsynch that got a lot of attention (he got slashdotted over it) The writeup is here: http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ This essentially does "incremental" backups, at any desired frequency [he runs his at every 4 hours] to disk. At first, this might not seem to be "the answer" to your problem since the files are still "on disk", not "on tape" or otherwise "offsite/off-this-machine", but this can be done over a network [in fact, he backs up his roommate's windows computer at the same time] Once the snapshots are built, they can be archived on tape, CD, or what-have-you using tar as mentioned previously in this thread [in fact, you probably could use cp or dd against the devices/partitiions, but that is getting VERY esoteric ;) ] On the commercial side of things, there is Arkiea (probably spelled wrong) which I've used -- it is a little cumbersome, but once you've got things "arranged" properly, it seems to work [I was able to back up 80 gigs data over the network from a windows client to a DLT drive -- took all day, but it worked...] I believe you can still get the "free" version [lets you back up two "clients" per server] which is actually the previous release of the software. -- Yet another Blog: http://osnut.homelinux.net

You might want to look into a package called, MondoRescue. It's an excellent backup package. It can backup Linux and Windows partitions. You can do full, differential and (I believe) incremental backups. Check out the site at http://www.mondorescue.com Rick On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 08:02:23 -0600, "Michael Satterwhite" said:

I'm now running my main box on Linux more than on Windows. My daily backups seem problematic, though.

I have a Travan-5 tape drive that I use for backup. Every week, I backup the entire system to tape. On the other days, I backup everything that changed since the last full backup. I have this set to run (Windows) unattended at midnight, I just change tapes. Tapes are rotated, giving me the ability to get files back at any day over the last month.

What can be used to accomplish this on Linux? Backup is a critical operation; I firmly believe that those who don't follow good backup procedures deserve what is inevitably going to happen.

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-- Rick Friedman rickfriedman@myfastmail.com Registered Linux user: #269579 Einstein: "God does not play dice." Bohr: "Stop telling God what to do." -- http://fastmail.fm - Access all of your messages and folders wherever you are

Hmmm... you're right. The http://www.mondorescue.com address doesn't work anymore. However, another address for the same site is: http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/ It works fine. Rick On Tue, 2003-02-25 at 02:09, Michael Salmon wrote:

On Friday, February 14, 2003 10:08:50 PM -0500 Rick Friedman wrote: +------ | You might want to look into a package called, MondoRescue. It's an | excellent backup package. It can backup Linux and Windows partitions. You | can do full, differential and (I believe) incremental backups. | | Check out the site at http://www.mondorescue.com [...] +-----X8

That site seems to be dead but http://www.gnu.org/directory/sysadmin/backup/MondoRescue.html works. -- This space intentionally left non-blank.