[CentOS] BackupPC: two newbie questions

[S.Tindall]

On Sun, 2008-12-21 at 14:02 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I'm running BackupPC under Centos-5.2.
> 
> 1. Will BackupPC backup files in NFS-mounted directories?
> If so, is there any simple way of preventing this?

Not sure I understand the question, but I assume you are talking about
backing up a remote system that has a nfs mount. Have not tried it, but
would guess that the answer is Yes It Could.

Using the rsync or rsyncd modes, you have the options to include and/or
exclude whatever you want. Very simple to do.

> 2. I have seen it suggested that it is not a good idea
> to backup onto a partition on the same drive
> as the BackupPC server?
> Is that true?
> If so, is a partition on a separate drive on the same machine also bad?

Sidestepping your question a little, are you planning to Not use some
form of redundant storage? Given that you are making backups, single
drive or nonredundant storage would be a bad idea.

In general, it is true that using a storage system for data/files
physically separate from the os/utilities is typically faster, but that
does not sound like the gist of your question. What I do is to mount a
logical volume at the storage location (/var/lib/backuppc) so that it
can grow or be otherwise modified as needed.

If the problem you expect is congestion, then you can limit the number
of concurrent backups to less than the default of 4 (see MaxBackups and
MaxUserBackups). I find that even modest single core systems can handle
1 backup without a lot of trouble.

As a first approximation, start up a manual rsync of something big
(e.g., /usr, iso image, etc.) from the remote system and see how that
impacts the proposed BackupPC server. Once the BackupPC server is put
into service, it is easy to figure out what the number should be.

HTH

Steve