[lug] Remote Backup util

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 08:34:34AM -0600, Alan Robertson wrote:
>I'd look at rsync (probably over ssh).  With the right options it is very
>stingy with bandwidth.

Yeah, but make sure you have absolutely the latest SSH and rsync bits.
Even then I often have problems with the rsync hanging up and having to be
restarted.  At one point I worked to isolate it by writing my own simple
ssh replacement for rsync to run over, and it did the same thing...  So, I
think the problem is in rsync.

The bigger problem being: how do you do incremental backups using rsync.
rsync will dutifully delete that file that somone removed last night before
leaving from your backup copy.

I built a program called "pyntar", which is a network streaming system that
understands and archives tar data to a central server.  It's available on
the tummy.com FTP site.  It's been working quite delightfully.  Basically
you just pipe tar data to this program, it shoves it over the network
(after authenticating with a chap-like mechanism).

It even keeps an extra index, and splits the archive files up in
chunks so you don't run into file-system size limitations.  It keeps track
of the old archives.

It could use some extra tools, but it seems to work fine for doing
automatic backups and manual restores.  We just did an audit of backups
running on it a couple of weeks ago and they're all happy.

Just a thought...

Sean
-- 
 It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
                 -- Mark Twain
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python