Hi, everyone. I wrote a guide for installing and configuring BackupPC on a CentOS host using rsync as the primary backup method. As best as one can proof read their own writing, I did so, but please read through and feel free to correct and change any typos. <http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/BackupPC> Regards, Max
Hi, This is not directly related to your guide, but to BackupPC and the CentOS package for it... Sorry for taking this a little off your original topic. I tried it sometime ago, but I had several issues with it. 1) It doesn't work on a 64-bit machine, since the Perl modules will be installed under /usr/lib64 but they will require '/usr/lib' instead. 2) It requires mod_perl, which in turn requires you to run Apache as user backuppc, which is not something I would do on a machine where Apache is already being used for something else. Use it as a CGI is not trivial from there, and requires changing permissions to files deployed on the RPM (in other words, would be lost in an upgrade). First I tried to work around these issues, but after a while I ended up getting the SRPM from Fedora 10 and rebuilding it in my machine and installing that one, and I have to say that it's much simpler than the one provided by CentOS. It works out of the box on a 64-bit machine, the administration interface is installed by default as a CGI (although I believe someone experienced enough would easily be able to use that same one with mod_perl just by changing Apache's config) and it actually includes a /etc/httpd/conf.d/backuppc file that works out of the box. The only issue I had with the Fedora RPM is that changing TopDir on the config file does not work, but that is an issue upstream and I'm almost sure CentOS one will not work either. I opened this bug for that, but it's still not fixed: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=473944 Anyway, I'm very thankful for CentOS and I don't mean this e-mail as bashing the work of the packagers, this were only my impressions when I tried to implement this specific software, and I'm only stating my opinion here. In other words, I'm not saying that the Fedora package is better, I'm just saying it worked better for me, with less need to tweak, with a simpler setup. Thanks, Filipe
On Thu, 2008-12-18 at 11:44 -0500, Max Hetrick wrote:> I wrote a guide for installing and configuring BackupPC on a CentOS host > using rsync as the primary backup method. As best as one can proof read > their own writing, I did so, but please read through and feel free to > correct and change any typos. > > <http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/BackupPC>I have 3 BackupPC servers running (2 i386 & 1 x86_64) backing up linux/win xp/vi$ta clients and have a few initial suggestions: 1) Add the wiki reference, which contains clarification of many points not addressed sufficiently in the documentation. http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net/ Considerable information regarding backing up window$ clients via rsync is contained there. As a note, the provided stripped down cygwin/rsync package is stale (will not run under vi$ta as a service) and installing the current cygwin works much better. 2) Also, a bug report contains corrective measures for the 64-bit installation. http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=3175 3) Web interface documentation link issues are addressed in another bug report: http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=3190 4) There is also a minor tweak with email notification that could be addressed in the readme file that I will eventually submit a bug report on (SendmailPath points to mail, not sendmail. Trying to send mail in default config gives a fatal error). 5) A section addressing backing up Macs would be very helpful (to me). The official documentation is very lacking in that area. Steve
Max, Wow. Thanks for the BackupPC guide. I've looked at BackupPC a few times over the last couple of years but haven't gotten around to actually trying to deploy it yet because something always got bumped up in front of as being a more important task... mainly because the modest rsync/rdiff-backup setup was working well enough. Your guide will enable me to deploy in a more timely and productive manner when the time does come. Regarding the arch issues... I feel compelled to mention OpenVZ containers as a very good solution to the problem. Feel free to run x86_64 on the host node and then create x86_64 containers or i386 containers... whichever suites your needs... AND you can use the container to isolate the environment giving you a dedicated BackupPC server without having to dedicate a physical machine. Backing up, migrating, or cloning a BackupPC container would be very easy and you could even offer a pre-configured OpenVZ OS Template with BackupPC already installed and configured... well, as generically configured as possible. TYL, -- Scott Dowdle 704 Church Street Belgrade, MT 59714 (406)388-0827 [home] (406)994-3931 [work]