[opensuse] Re: virtual machines great for backups by instant snapshots

On 21/10/12 23:03, Ted Byers wrote:

On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Greg Freemyer wrote:

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On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 3:30 AM, ellanios82 wrote:

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Hello SuSErs

Virtual Machines _______________

Could it make sense to PREFER to run Linux as a Virtual Machine?? { thus, for example, one might install openSuSE 12.2 as ones foundation, and Next, install a Virtual Machine, then, Finally install another instance of openSuSE 12.2 on ones Virtual Machine upon which Virtual Machine one would do ALL ones work}

thanks

best regards Ellan

The instant VM snapshots do NOT make redundant copies of the data. Thus

- instant backups protect from user errors, etc.

- do NOT protect from hardware failure

So it depends why you're making backups. I would say many of us worry about disk failures, etc. For that you need to get your full backup onto alternate media.

When I first started developing software, my thesis supervisor told me I should always aim to make my software idiot-proof since I can never know what kind of idiot is using it. When it comes to statistics, that could never be more true, given how often I have seen even full professors recommend the wrong statistical analysis. It takes a lot of effort to design your software to protect users against innocent mistakes, but you can't always protect them from 'stupid' syndrome.

If the idea is to make the system "fool proof" and enable the user to roll back some changes then the btrfs files system is something you should look at. I am not sure it is mature yet but it implements snapshots/rollbacks at file system level and apparently very efficiently. I tried it a while back and I confirm that it works as advertized. openSUSE even has a tool and a GUI for it already: snapper. http://lizards.opensuse.org/2011/04/01/introducing-snapper/ /~jc -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org