[clue-tech] Multiple system backups

[Angelo Bertolli]

David L. Anselmi wrote:

> Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> [...]
>
>> Bacula had the advantage of allowing network backups without 
>> generating an ssl key since it uses its own client/server software.  
>> However bacula really is geared more toward tapes and implicitly 
>> requires some kind of volume management or pool.  That's ok, because 
>> I figured I could enforce a max size of 2 GB on volumes, and then 
>> burn them from the hard drive to DVD.
>
>
> I disagree that it's geared towards tape.  Obviously it has extra 
> functionality that you need to use tape.  But I use it on disk and a 
> pool is just a file.  Handy to break up backup files by machine but 
> there's no need to go beyond the defaults.

I know that there are a lot of examples in their documentation that 
involve disks, but I remember reading somewhere in their mailing list 
that the target audience was tape backups.  The part where I ran into 
confusion is how pool and volumes are handled--in particular when 
setting the volume rotation and size, etc.  I can't really be very 
specific, because it's been a while now, but something about volumes 
overwriting other volumes didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Plus, the bacula console was obviously above my level of understanding 
of backups, rotations, etc.  I couldn't figure out the commands or what 
they meant exactly, or what was going on when I executed them.  Let's 
say for example, I just want to retrieve one directory to restore that I 
had lost... I couldn't figure out how to do it (at least not without 
having a specific job just for that directory).

Also, I'm a LITTLE bit worried about bacula's security.

>> I uninstalled bacula and tried the others because I figured that I 
>> didn't really want automated backups anyway.
>
>
> If your hardware is on, you do.  My workstation backup isn't automatic 
> because I leave it and my USB drive off usually.  Bacula works fine 
> for manual backups.

Maybe, but I have no idea how often I would want to do them 
automatically.  Every week?  Every month?  I'm pretty sure I don't want 
every day.

>> What I'm trying to come up with is something that:
>>
>> * is simple and straightforward, and allows me to backup only certain 
>> parts of the directory tree
>> * can be run whenever I feel like backing up all of my computers
>> * burns the backups to DVD (although not necessarily directly--a copy 
>> on my second drive is fine)
>> * makes restoring certain files easy
>
>
> What are your restore scenarios?  Are you using DVDs as removable 
> storage, or are you archiving long term?

My main concern is hard drive failure.  I have an older 160 GB hard 
drive, and a newer 160 GB hard drive.  I have plenty of space, so I 
wanted to use the newer drive as my backup drive.  I figure the less a 
drive gets used, the longer it will last, so I decided not to do 
anything like RAID (plus dang what a waste of space).  Now, I'm not 
really that concerned about incremental backups, so a REAL backup 
program doesn't make much difference--only something that will save me 
in case my hard drive decides to go.

What I really want is to be able to every so often make a snapshot of 
what I have, just in case something bad happens.  And because I'm only 
concerned with the latest snapshot, I don't want to be burning it to DVD 
all the time--just once in a while.  I'm hoping the scenario will be 
that I never have to go back to a DVD, that I can just restore off the 
backup drive--but having a DVD makes me feel safer.

> I've used CDs for backup before and they weren't very reliable. 
> Identifying when a backup didn't work (and recovering), or when a CD 
> was worn out and needed replacing was problematic.  Perhaps top end 
> media would help (see Sean R. on BLUG recently).  USB (or other 
> removable) hard drives are much nicer and not much more than top 
> quality media + writer.

Anything more than a year old could probably be thrown out, in my case.

> I've done the custom backup script (back before USB drives and backup 
> software that could use CDs).  I won't ever do it again.  It isn't bad 
> for one machine, after you've identified and handled all the failure 
> modes.  But adding a machine to Bacula takes < 5 min.  Individual 
> scripts just don't scale.

Yeah, that's sort of where I'm at now.  Also, I have a hard time 
identifying what is important to back up and what is not.


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