Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 18:23:02 -0600 From: "Micheal Patterson" <micheal@tsgincorporated.com> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: using samba for backups Message-ID: <00a701c40635$ddd73b40$0201a8c0@dredster> References: <6.0.0.22.0.20040309174210.21cd7918@pop.face2interface.com>
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Marty Landman" <MLandman@face2interface.com> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 5:00 PM Subject: using samba for backups > Maybe a dumb question, but now that I have samba servers on all three of my > nix boxes with mapped drives on my two windows workstations there's a great > temptation brewing in my mind to backup things directly on mapped hard drives. > > Are there any potential pitfalls to this approach, iow are there any > compatibility issues that come up if I copy files from a nix box to a > windows box and vice versa? > > On the side it's getting to be such a pleasant development environment on > my lan that I can't help shake this awful feeling that something's going to > mess up big time. > > Marty Landman Face 2 Interface Inc. 845-679-9387 > FormATable DB: http://face2interface.com/Products/FormATable.shtml > Make a Website: http://face2interface.com/Home/Demo.shtml > Free Formmailer: http://face2interface.com/Products/Formal.shtml > If you're planning on backing up from Windows to Unix, no problem unless you're using the built in Windows backup system. In order to do a full recovery from that, even with server 2003, the backup media has to be local to the server to recover from a full system failure since you can't mount network shares during the recovery process. However, if you're planning on backing up from unix to Windows, you'll be limited to a 4gb maximum file size on a per file basis. This is a problem with the way that Windows communicates with smbd and it's various other relatives (sharity, smb_fs, etc). To do this, you'll need to use dump, or some other package that will allow you to limit the size of the file volume. Tar won't allow you to do this. So, for example, if you want to do a full 18gb backup from *nix to windows, you'll need to configure dump to do something like this: #!/sh /sbin/dump -0 -B 2000000 -f /backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol1,/backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol2,/backups/MA IL2/fri-sys-vol3,/backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol4,/backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol5,/ba ckups/MAIL2/fri-sys -vol6,/backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol7,/backups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol8,/backups/MAIL2 /fri-sys-vol9,/back ups/MAIL2/fri-sys-vol10 /dev/ad0s1a The above is a direct copy of what I do on a daily basis. That runs dump, level 0 (full dump) 2gb volume size -f <all volume files that will be needed> <device> This will end up with 10, 2gb volumes for my system backup. Some would say that it's a waste of space, and it may be, but I prefer full system backups instead of incrementals due to the specific reasons of this particular server (HIPAA !UGH!). If for some reason, I need to move the backup volumes to a single drive, I've got an entire system image from any particular day of the week to run from instead of a full backup and a crap load of daily incrementals. To each his own on that route though. These are things to keep in mind in here. :) -- Micheal Patterson Network Administration TSG Incorporated 405-917-0600
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