Linux Backup Software

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:54:59 GMT, Jim staggered into the Black Sun and said:

I think you're going to have to explain what you mean by "central management" and "web if possible". (Je peux lire francais, si c'est plus facile pour vous.) Backups are generally done via cron, so you don't have to think about them.

You may want to do something with 2 stages: Use rsync to move data from machine X to backup server Y, then use tar (or amanda, or BRU, or whatever) to move data from backup server Y to tape. The big problem with that is that machine Y needs to have a lot of disk space; enough to store copies of everything that gets sent from all machines that get backed up. rsync only transfers the data that it needs to transfer; files with the same mtime on both source and destination don't get copied while files with differing mtimes are checked for differences, and only the parts that are different get copied over the network.

This is both horribly inefficient and totally incorrect. dd is a horrible backup method; it copies *everything* on a device including blocks that aren't in use. Also, dd doesn't *do* FTP! You'd have to pipe dd's output through netcat or something, not use of=. If you want to make image-like backups of things, you'll have much better luck using partimage instead.

-- Matt GThere is no Darkness in Eternity-But only Light too dim for us to see Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong ----------------------------- penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL