[CentOS] Best backup software for linux

Wed Oct 25 00:38:42 UTC 2006
Ed Morrison <ed at morrisonnetworks.com>

Mark Schoonover wrote:
> Matt Hyclak wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 04:01:45PM +0100, Peter Crighton enlightened
>> us: 
>>     
>>>> We are running backup softwares for incrementals/differentials and
>>>> full backups with variouse softwares currently using dirvish
>>>> scripts + amanda .. what is everyones views on other opensourced
>>>> backup software? is there anything better or other options we have
>>>> missed?  We are looking at backula as an option? any thoughts?
>>>>         
>>> I am looking for the answer to the same question. I have got amanda
>>> going (but not used in anger - just doing my first Centos install for
>>> my home server). Just today got amanda to write and restore some
>>> data. 
>>>
>>> So my requirements:
>>>
>>> * cheap/free
>>> * multiple backups per tape
>>> * fully automated backup each day
>>> * easy recovery (happy with either a Kdat type GUI or amanda type) -
>>> needs to know which tape to recover the latest (or chosen) version.
>>> * ideal for a home network (mixed Linux Windows)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The only thing I don't like about amanda (so far) is that it needs a
>>> new tape each backup, mainly because I'd like it to be a completely
>>> automatic backup, only requiring the tape to be changed when full
>>> (or maybe each month). 
>>>
>>> I typically don't backup much data each day (because it's a home
>>> network), so I'd like to be able to store multiple backups on each
>>> tape. I have 20GB Travan tape drive, so that's enough for a complete
>>> full backup and several incremental's.
>>>
>>>       
>> If you have enough holding disk, just leave the tape out until you
>> hit about 20GB worth of data. I do this here at work on a weekly
>> basis - holding disk is a pair of RAID 1 disks, then once a week I
>> pop a tape in and it flushes the entire week's worth of data.
>>
>> Matt
>>     
>
> If you have 20GB of data, using tapes is OK. In my case, I have about 3TB of
> data that needs to be backed up, and taken offsite. So, the only real option
> is rsync going out to disks. We started out with using one of the recipes
> from the Linux Server Hacks book, #38, #41 & #42 to essentially build up a
> poor man's SAN. Using CentOS installed on systems with 3Ware cards, I have 2
> onsite 4 TB NAS. The first one is for network use, the second is for hourly,
> daily and weekly snapshots of the main NAS. There's a third 4TB NAS that's
> located offsite in a colo facility that's fed with dual T1s. We can have
> anywhere from 2-5 GB of data change every day. We're a company of about 50
> employees, and we do legal work - so nothing can be thrown away.
>
> This system runs 7 days a week, and it's fully automated with email alerts,
> etc. The big benefit is restores. We've had our graphics dept accidently
> delete 250GB of data, and it was trivial to scp the missing data back to the
> main NAS. It all happened at network speeds, over a GB switch. All the NASes
> have dual NICS in them, and the second NICS are connected to their own
> private GB switch - hence the poor man's SAN. When hourly snapshots run, all
> the data that changes has a seperate GB network to move the data, leaving
> the office network alone. No user can tell that backups are happening
> throughout the day.
>
> Maybe this is something I should write up in more detail. The entire system
> runs on just a couple of shell scripts, rsync, and Perl program to mail out
> logs....
>
> HTH
> Mark
>
> Mark
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>   
I would be interested in seeing your writeup also if you decide to do it.

Ed