[CentOS] backup to disk
Ray Leventhal
centos at swhi.net
Mon Mar 31 15:44:40 UTC 2008
Ned Slider wrote:
> Ray Leventhal wrote:
>>
>> I'm looking for common practices for backing up user data to disk.
>> My user data is all in /home. I'm also interested in what folks are
>> doing for things backing up os and configs.
>
<snip>
> In a mixed Linux/Windows environment, I deployed a Linux backup server
> and mounted users data directories on the backup server using smb/cifs
> and then did a "local" rsync of the mounted dirs to the backup dir
> (easy to run as a cron job each night). Further backups may then be
> written to removable storage for off site storage or additional disks
> in case of drive failure. I like rsync for backing up changing data
> sets such as users data.
>
> To negate the risks/downtime associated with hard drive failure, I
> cloned the original OS setup using dd to spare HDs and locked them in
> the safe. Primary drive failure would require replacement of the
> drives (and a system update) and restoring data from the latest
> backups, although there's no reason one couldn't run 2 near identical
> backup servers side by side if the hardware is available.
>
> There are simply so many different ways one could implement a backup
> strategy depending on hardware available, what software you're
> comfortable with, whether you want to script your own or use a backup
> package, the type of data you need to back up etc. The *important*
> thing is that you're comfortable with your backup procedure, it meets
> your needs, it's performed regularly, it's tested and it works.
>
Hi Ned,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've cloned the OS drive already and
it is safely locked away. We're an entirely off-internet system, so
updates aren't even a problem. The issue is the user data and with what
you and others have written, I'm considering doing a local rsync to a
second set of mirrored drives already in the box (but as of now disused).
Kind regards,
-Ray
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