On 03/14/2012 08:43 AM, Les Mikesell wrote: > On Wed, Mar 14, 2012 at 10:10 AM, ken <gebser at mousecar.com> wrote: >> What (FOSS) backup apps can back up a system running at level 3/5? > Almost all backup methods except raw partition/disk images will work > with the system running. You aren't guaranteed that files will be in > a consistent state when restored, but the OS itself is fairly sure to > work and databases and similar apps usually have their own ways to do > live consistent snapshots. > I find that LVM snapshots are useful to insure data integrity. for example, I backup my mysql databases by stopping the mysql server, taking an LVM snapshot and restarting it. The whole snapshot process probably takes less then 15 seconds. Then I backup the snapshot LVM and it doesn't matter how long it takes. You must make sure that your snapshot volume is large enough that you won't run out of space before deleting the snapshot. Nataraj