It is August again, and it seems I have less time for blogging every week. At the moment I have to devote most of my time to studying economics and business administration. Hence I rarely have time to test new applications, not to speak about testing new distributions. I need operating systems, applications and distributions that just work.
Unfortunately, this means that I just cannot spend an evening or a weekend with configuring some of the more interesting distributions I have really tried to use. Crux and Arch are two distros that I most probably would enjoy using, but at the moment I'm going to continue using distributions that I've used since the beginning of my geek years: openSUSE and Debian. SuSE 7.1 or 7.2 was the first Linux I installed to be used as my main desktop in 2001 at the University where I worked as a researcher. Since then, I've tried and used most of the mainstream distros at least for a year or two on desktop either at work or home.
At home, I use openSUSE 11.1 as my main desktop. It is supported by a Debian box that at the moment serves me as a quick & dirty backup for my files. I have not had time to build anything fancy: I did a command line only installation on the box that can be used only over ssh in the LAN.
I back up my desktop simply by first turning the Debian box on, and then I execute a very simple script that basically rsyncs the /home partition on openSUSE with the remote /home/backups/ on the Debian box. So I have not yet built any automated backup system with incremental or differential backups, I just mirror the files of the ordinary users on another computer.
The backups can "easily" be restored by sftp or by mounting the Samba share provided by the Debian box. I decided to use Samba instead of a purely Linux solution, because I wanted to be able to copy the backups even to a XP laptop and my eMac. I would love to have a fully functioning system that can sync the files between several computers in different locations, but at the moment the project has to rest for some time.
Showing posts with label Backups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Backups. Show all posts
Building a backup box
A week ago, I wrote about my almost disastrous experience with a LaCie external hard drive. As I realized my data is not at all secured at the moment, I decided to build me a dedicated box for backups.
I've been pretty busy during the last week, and my project has been slow in progress. The hardware chosen for my backup server is almost overkill for this use: it is a box with Asus A7V8X-MX SE motherboard, 1.99 GHz CPU, 256 megabytes RAM and a 500 GB hard disk.
I used this box for years as my main desktop and it would certainly be more than adequate for most of my computing needs even today. Unfortunately the 1 GHz box I own is in another town and the physical distance between these two locations forces me to use this machine for my backups and the HP box as a desktop at least for some time.
Building the backups system is not quite as easy as I thought. My hardware collection keeps growing and the hardware is distributed in three locations in two cities. Furthermore, in addition to the several Linux boxes I use, my wife uses sometimes a laptop with XP. And the latest addition to my hardware is a eMac running OS X 10.3.9. Probably I will only automatize backing up my main desktop.
Unfortunately, the constant growing of my hardware collection means that it becomes more and more difficult to keep all the files in sync between different computers. A dedicated file server would of course be a possible solution, but I don't like the idea of having yet another box running 24/7 even when I'm in another town because of my studies.
In addition, the file server should be accessible over Internet, which I find at least scary as I cannot trust my own abilities in building a system secure enough for my level of paranoia. I don't want my life to be rwx or even r-- for the whole world in case I cannot keep the server secure enough.
I've been pretty busy during the last week, and my project has been slow in progress. The hardware chosen for my backup server is almost overkill for this use: it is a box with Asus A7V8X-MX SE motherboard, 1.99 GHz CPU, 256 megabytes RAM and a 500 GB hard disk.
I used this box for years as my main desktop and it would certainly be more than adequate for most of my computing needs even today. Unfortunately the 1 GHz box I own is in another town and the physical distance between these two locations forces me to use this machine for my backups and the HP box as a desktop at least for some time.
Building the backups system is not quite as easy as I thought. My hardware collection keeps growing and the hardware is distributed in three locations in two cities. Furthermore, in addition to the several Linux boxes I use, my wife uses sometimes a laptop with XP. And the latest addition to my hardware is a eMac running OS X 10.3.9. Probably I will only automatize backing up my main desktop.
Unfortunately, the constant growing of my hardware collection means that it becomes more and more difficult to keep all the files in sync between different computers. A dedicated file server would of course be a possible solution, but I don't like the idea of having yet another box running 24/7 even when I'm in another town because of my studies.
In addition, the file server should be accessible over Internet, which I find at least scary as I cannot trust my own abilities in building a system secure enough for my level of paranoia. I don't want my life to be rwx or even r-- for the whole world in case I cannot keep the server secure enough.
Backup - Articles and Applications
In this posting, I collect some of the links about backing up a Linux system or at least the /home directory.
The articles and applications mentioned here might be useful for some of my readers - but I wrote this basically to act as a reminder for my own backup project.
Bacula - is a network based open source backup program. Supports many different operating systems.
FreeNAS - is a network attached storage server based on FreeBSD. Good documentation.
Backups to the Future: Eliminate Tape Backups with FreeNAS and Bacula - how to combine FreeNAS and Bacula.
Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync - by Mike Rubel.
Time Machine for every Unix out there.
A simple Linux backup method - Steven J. Rosen in DesktopLinux.com.
Automatic Backups with rsync and Anacron - by Barry O'Donovan.
BackupPC -- a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up Linux, WinXX and MacOSX PCs and laptops to a server's disk. BackupPC is highly configurable and easy to install and maintain.
Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO - by Charles Curley
Backing up Linux and other Unix(-like) systems - by Wiebe Cazemier
Geek to Live: Mirror files across systems with rsync - Gina Trapani / Lifehacker
Debian backup configuration tutorials - Debianhelp
Linux Links - Software - Backup. Links to many different backup apps for Linux.
FlyBack - Apple's Time Machine for Linux.
Creating Incremental Snapshot-style Backups With rSync And SSH - Stephan Jau in HowtoForge.
LuckyBackup - LuckyBackup is an application for data back-up and synchronization powered by the rsync tool.
Duplicity - Duplicity backs directories by producing encrypted tar-format volumes and uploading them to a remote or local file server.
This article is updated at random intervals. Please suggest more links in the comment box!
The articles and applications mentioned here might be useful for some of my readers - but I wrote this basically to act as a reminder for my own backup project.
Bacula - is a network based open source backup program. Supports many different operating systems.
FreeNAS - is a network attached storage server based on FreeBSD. Good documentation.
Backups to the Future: Eliminate Tape Backups with FreeNAS and Bacula - how to combine FreeNAS and Bacula.
Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync - by Mike Rubel.
Time Machine for every Unix out there.
A simple Linux backup method - Steven J. Rosen in DesktopLinux.com.
Automatic Backups with rsync and Anacron - by Barry O'Donovan.
BackupPC -- a high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up Linux, WinXX and MacOSX PCs and laptops to a server's disk. BackupPC is highly configurable and easy to install and maintain.
Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO - by Charles Curley
Backing up Linux and other Unix(-like) systems - by Wiebe Cazemier
Geek to Live: Mirror files across systems with rsync - Gina Trapani / Lifehacker
Debian backup configuration tutorials - Debianhelp
Linux Links - Software - Backup. Links to many different backup apps for Linux.
FlyBack - Apple's Time Machine for Linux.
Creating Incremental Snapshot-style Backups With rSync And SSH - Stephan Jau in HowtoForge.
LuckyBackup - LuckyBackup is an application for data back-up and synchronization powered by the rsync tool.
Duplicity - Duplicity backs directories by producing encrypted tar-format volumes and uploading them to a remote or local file server.
This article is updated at random intervals. Please suggest more links in the comment box!
Rescuing LaCie - thinking about backups again
Today in the morning, I turned my computer on and plugged my LaCie external hard drive on. Nothing happened. No icon appeared on the desktop. Soon I noticed that the led was blinking orange and green light and I heard the hard drive slowly click.
Not again! Only last summer I lost one hard disk drive, and now the rather expensive external hard disk was dead. Fortunately, I had mostly backups on the hard disk and only a few hundred photos that I probably did not have elsewhere.
After some googling around I learned how to open the case by using a thin kitchen knife. What I found was a basic Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive. It turned out to be a fully functioning hard disk that was easy to mount as an internal hard disk in my desktop computer.
Now I have something I should probably call an internal external hard disk :-)
Tomorrow I have to buy yet another hard disk for building some kind of automatic backup system using some old box I have under my desk.
Any suggestions?
Not again! Only last summer I lost one hard disk drive, and now the rather expensive external hard disk was dead. Fortunately, I had mostly backups on the hard disk and only a few hundred photos that I probably did not have elsewhere.
After some googling around I learned how to open the case by using a thin kitchen knife. What I found was a basic Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive. It turned out to be a fully functioning hard disk that was easy to mount as an internal hard disk in my desktop computer.
Now I have something I should probably call an internal external hard disk :-)
Tomorrow I have to buy yet another hard disk for building some kind of automatic backup system using some old box I have under my desk.
Any suggestions?
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