[lug] Automated USB Drive Backup

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 08:01:05AM -0600, Bear Giles wrote:
>Related note: here's a deep question for you -- what actually needs to 
>be backed up?

Everything except /proc, /sys, and /dev.  That's my story and I'm sticking
to it.

Storage space is so cheap and time and data loss is so expensive that it
doesn't make sense to not back up everything.  For example, my home backup
server was recently running out of space about once every other month.  I
decided to add another drive to make it fill up less often.  I started with
4 drives in RAID-5.  In the end, I pushed it to 10 drives in a RAID-6
because it was basically free for me to do so.  I was already spending the
time to rebuild the backup system...

>From the home backup server, the latest copy is push out over the net.

>Probably nothing (or nearly nothing) under /bin, /usr or 

Yeah, but on the other hand it's nice to have the opportunity to boot up a
system with a rescue disc, do a mke2fs or 3, and then dump the whole backup
image across the net.

But, as you say, it would make sense not to.

I've always wanted to write a backup program that used the RPM database to
see what files on the system were modified from the base install, back
those up along with a list of packages installed, and then back up the
files that weren't in the package database.  Then use inotify to watch for
files that are modified and back those up regularly, like every 15 minutes
or hour.

Then I realized that I really wanted for my workstation was to just have
all my data changes journaled and just dump off the journals.  ZFS hast
this ability, but it does not have the ability to directly manipulate the
journal.  It would be really nice to be able to go back in and say "These
changes made to this directory where I renamed all these files to the wrong
name?  Undo those...

>I've been wondering if it's reasonable to say that everything you -need- 
>to back up can fit onto a single CD or DVD.  It would require more 

I'm not enamored with physical media.  All of my backups go onto hard
drives, usually encrypted so I don't have to worry about someone breaking
into my house and stealing all my data if they steal the computers they're
on.

Thanks,
Sean
-- 
 <+kritical> christin: you need to learn how to figure out stuff yourself..
 <+Christin1> how do i do that
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability