From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 26 20:26:55 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C80DD106566B for ; Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:26:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from out1.smtp.messagingengine.com (out1.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FC558FC16 for ; Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:26:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jeffrey@goldmark.org) Received: from compute1.internal (compute1.internal [10.202.2.41]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1345E104124 for ; Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:26:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from heartbeat1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute1.internal (MEProxy); Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:26:55 -0400 X-Sasl-enc: bSqBhWeQxPR1vk2eshPKrDW00QvO3akZQbGGUkfye4zZ 1209241614 Received: from hagrid.ewd.goldmark.org (n114.ewd.goldmark.org [72.64.118.114]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 929EE15649 for ; Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:26:54 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <31702B1B-03EF-4505-8BDF-D82A90C865ED@goldmark.org> From: Jeffrey Goldberg To: FreeBSD List Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2) Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:26:53 -0500 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2) Subject: USB HD based backup schemes X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:26:55 -0000 I am hoping that this is on-topic for the questions list. If not, I apologize. I have a couple of FreeBSD systems, and I must confess that I haven't set systematic back-ups of them. I've taken a quick look at both the Bacula and Amanda documentation, but for reasons below I'll list why I don't think that they are idea for my rather simple situation. Each system has less than 20G to be backed up, including OS and ports. One of the systems, dobby, is physically difficult to get to. I would like dobby to be a network client for backup. The other, kreacher, is more conveniently placed, and actually has a cool little USB hard-drive drive dock. I've tested that and it works. I'd like this other machine So far, what I've been doing is running level 0 dumps on both kreacher and dobby. In each case, I've had enough space in /tmp to create dump files in /tmp. When done on kreacher, I've copied them over to a USB drive. The ones from dobby I've scp'ed over to kreacher. At worst I could script this, but it I can't be sure I'll always have the space in /tmp. I need to get the mounting of the USB drive clean and stuff like that. Also, always running Level 0 dumps is bad for a number of obvious reasons. My needs aren't to be able to always have the ability to recover some file to the state it was a week ago Thursday. (I wouldn't mind that, but that's not my primary goal). My primary goal is disaster recovery: In the event of a disk crash, fire, or I really mess up the system. Kreacher will shortly be running mysql-server with a couple of very small databases. Otherwise this are pretty static servers (light mail, DNS, DHCP, light HTTP). Neither machine can hold additional disks internally or is otherwise expandable. Both Amanda seems designed for back-up to tape. Bacula, frankly, seems too complicated. I'm sure that I could roll my own with dump or such, but I'm sure that I would leave important things out and that this has already been done by people who are smarter and more experienced than I am. So recommendations please. -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/