Rsync will go cross platform fine, the main concern will be NTFS permissions (if
you have complex permissions). If your permissions are just at the share level
you should have a very easy copy / set up shares.
As to running: I'd run MUCH more than daily, i.e. maybe hourly - rsync tends
to optimize it's transfers quite well.
I'd set up your shares AHEAD of time with permissions on the vista box set
to nobody having permission to the share - Then if the box goes down you can
simply turn on the permissions - that way if you are out of the office when it
happens changing share permissions is a pretty trivial task.
Steve Radich - Founder and Principal of Business Information Technology Shop -
www.bitshop.com
Developer Resources Site: www.ASPDeveloper.Net ?- www.VirtualServerFAQ.com
? LinkedIn Public Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveradich
-----Original Message-----
From: rsync-bounces+stever=bitshop.com@lists.samba.org
[mailto:rsync-bounces+stever=bitshop.com@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Jeff
Boyce
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 1:04 PM
To: rsync mailing list
Subject: Disaster recovery option for file server
Greetings -
I have not been a long time follower of this list, but I have scanned
through the last year or so of archives, after not finding much from google
searches. I am hoping someone here can inform me if what I want to do is
feasible, and give me some general guidance to follow so that I can continue
my research and complete this task.
I admin a RH3 system that is primarily a Samba file server for a small
office of 8 Windows PC's. We have been having some hardware issues with our
server recently and want to have an option that minimizes our productive
down time if other hardware issues occur. Our file server is backed up on
tape daily, so the potential loss of files is not an issue; maintaining
continuous access to the files (if a hardware failure occurs) is the problem
I am trying to figure a solution for. We do not have the funding in the
near term to just replace our server, so that is not an option.
What I am wondering is if I can use rsync to mirror a copy of our two
primary Samba shares from the Linux server to my Vista desktop. The Vista
desktop is relatively new and has a large enough hard drive to place copies
of the Samba shares. I would probably set it up as a cron job to run every
night. Then if we had a hardware failure on the server, I could make the
shares available from my Vista box to the rest of the office and keep our
project data available while we diagnose and replace our failed hardware.
Then whenever our server is back up I could transfer the data back to it.
Is this a possible solution, pushing the Samba shares from a Linux box to a
Vista box using rsync? I have fixed ip addresses in the office, so I am
sure that I can make sure there is a solid communication link all the time.
Do I need to be concerned about the data going between different file
systems (ext3 on the Linux server to ntfs on the Vista box, then probably
back to ext3 again)? Would I have to run cygwin on the Vista box? I would
prefer not to if possible. Can anyone give me some basic guidance on how I
might do this? All the discussions I see about using rsync is either
between two Linux boxes, or from a Windows box using cygwin to a Linux
server. What I am considering doing is neither of those cases. Thanks.
Jeff Boyce
www.meridianenv.com
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