Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:18:10 +0000 (UTC) From: John Mills <johnmills@speakeasy.net> To: FreeBSD-questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Cc: Keith Spencer <bsd2000au@yahoo.com.au> Subject: Re: Can I bakup like this...?? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0311191353590.7448-100000@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <20031119053350.67878.qmail@web12002.mail.yahoo.com>
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Freebies - In case this helps: On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Keith Spencer wrote: > I need a quick n safe backup strategy. > One that I can get the machine backup super quick if > have to. > What say you about this...(and "how do I" tips please) > a) Throw another drive in the box If you can mount a shared drive in another machine, that's even better. > b) Createthe same or at least minimum size partitions > as the active drive You don't need as much space if you compress the record. > c) Cron job to "dump" or tar or ??? the partitions 'man cron' is doubtless your friend here. Write a script that runs your script and invoke it in the daily 'cron' run. Here's the script to cull a number of large but uninteresting directories out of my $HOME and create a compressed backup file. A separate script would "roll" two successive copies of the compressed 'cpio' archive in the backup storage space. I copied the archive out to a Windows 'share' in my employer's backup path the first time I did this. At home, I just manually copy it to a CD. ************************************************************************* #!/bin/sh echo "CPIO backup of /home to /tmp/myhomebackup.bz2" echo "List contents with: bunzip2 -kc /tmp/myhomebackup.bz2 | cpio --list" echo "Restore with: cd / ; bunzip2 -kc /tmp/myhomebackup.bz2 | cpio -i -d [-v]" if [ -f /tmp/backuplist ] then rm /tmp/backuplist fi find /home ! -type d -print | grep \/temp\/ -v | grep \/image\/ -v | grep \/incoming\/ -v | grep \/cache\/ -v > /tmp/backuplist cpio -o -H crc < /tmp/backuplist | bzip2 -c - > /tmp/myhomebackup.bz2 echo "Backup created" ************************************************************************* The key is making the file '/tmp/backuplist' with the right fully qualified paths to those _files_ (not just the directories) you want to backup. This approach can traverse partitions as needed (depending on where you start your 'find'). 'cpio' also preserves file dates and permissions a bit more gently than 'tar' (or so I understand). If you need "really quick" recovery, you may consider using one of those "hot-swap" IDE disk-drive mounts and have a spare of your _primary_ disk ready to use (and boot, etc.). That saves you the time and trouble of rebuilding the partitions on a new disk, and you only need to backup (and to recover), those directories that are volatile. Now you only need a secondary disk large enough to take the compressed contents of your "live" backup fileset, it need not be bootable, and you save time making and recovering the archive. If you can dump the archive to something like a CD-R/RW, so much the better HTH. - John Mills john.m.mills@alum.mit.edu
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