I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a
CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me
a recommendation.
This is what I need:
- Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command
line)
- Ability to span tapes for a large backup
- Proper treatment of hardlinked files
- Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next
tape.
I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours
just trying to index the files (it never actually started the backup).
I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based on
the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best.
Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a
simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all
of the extra scheduling and indexing features.
--
Bowie
On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 15:10 -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote:> I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me > a recommendation. > > This is what I need: > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command > line) > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next > tape. > <snip>> Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features.It's been a long time since I looked at them but both tar (short for tape archive) and cpio have the features you want, IIRC. Cpio is fed by "find" usually so you can do things like -depth to affect order. I know cpio has ability for media change prompt at the invoking terminal, I don't recall if tar does or not. You'll have to read up on tar to see how it does hard links (I can't remember) but cpio can do them right. Caveat: it's been a long time since I used these for what you are looking at. Investigate thoroughly.> > -- > Bowie > <snippity, snippity siggity,siggity>HTH -- Bill -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20060607/d837ed37/attachment-0002.sig>
> Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features. >dump
On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Bowie Bailey wrote:> I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me > a recommendation. > > This is what I need: > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command > line) > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next > tape. > > I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours > just trying to index the files (it never actually started the backup). > > I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based on > the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best. > > Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features.Bacula (www.bacula.org) will do what you want, though wading through the initial configuration process can take a couple hours. Tape spanning is well supported; backups can be scheduled or initiated from the command line; the cli restore process has an interface similar to dump/restore, so it's fairly easy to navigate. We use it to back up CentOS, Debian, Gentoo, and OS X to tape. -- Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com
Paul Heinlein wrote:> > Bacula (www.bacula.org) will do what you want, though wading through > the initial configuration process can take a couple hours. Tape > spanning is well supported; backups can be scheduled or initiated from > the command line; the cli restore process has an interface similar to > dump/restore, so it's fairly easy to navigate. > > We use it to back up CentOS, Debian, Gentoo, and OS X to tape.Will the el3 rpms work with CentOS4? Which rpms do I need? -- Bowie
dirvish http://www.dirvish.org/ tad On 6/7/06, Bowie Bailey <Bowie_Bailey at buc.com> wrote:> > I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me > a recommendation. > > This is what I need: > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command > line) > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next > tape. > > I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours > just trying to index the files (it never actually started the backup). > > I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based on > the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best. > > Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features. > > -- > Bowie > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-- sometimes truth is stranger than fiction -bad religion- http://www.bloglines.com/blog/mailist -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20060607/dc11dab8/attachment-0002.html>
Bowie Bailey wrote:> I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give me > a recommendation. > > This is what I need: > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the command > line) > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the next > tape. > > I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours > just trying to index the files (it never actually started the backup). > > I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based on > the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best. > > Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > of the extra scheduling and indexing features.http://flexbackup.sf.net I used that for years, but the network grew and needed a "bigger" solution so I switched to backuppc which is working great. --Ajay
Ajay Sharma wrote:> Bowie Bailey wrote: > > I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup a > > CentOS box to a local tape drive. Hopefully someone here can give > > me a recommendation. > > > > This is what I need: > > - Simple launching of manual backups (preferably from the > > command line) > > - Ability to span tapes for a large backup > > - Proper treatment of hardlinked files > > - Notification via email or similar when it is ready for the > > next tape. > > > > I tried mondo-rescue, but decided against it after it spent 4 hours > > just trying to index the files (it never actually started the > > backup). > > > > I am considering Amanda, but the setup is a bit complex and, based > > on the docs, the tape spanning capability isn't the best. > > > > Anyone have any suggestions? I would think that there would be a > > simple program out there to backup and restore from tape without all > > of the extra scheduling and indexing features. > > http://flexbackup.sf.net > > I used that for years, but the network grew and needed a "bigger" > solution so I switched to backuppc which is working great.I'm using backuppc. I just need something to dump the backuppc machine to tape for an offsite or last-resort backup. The problem is that backuppc is currently using 161GB (compressed) and the tapes only hold 40GB each, so I need something with some sort of intelligent tape-spanning capability. I haven't seen flexbackup. I'm currently evaluating afbackup. -- Bowie
Les Mikesell wrote:> On Wed, 2006-06-14 at 13:09 -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote: > > > > I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to > > > > backup a CentOS box to a local tape drive. > > > > http://flexbackup.sf.net > > > > > > I used that for years, but the network grew and needed a "bigger" > > > solution so I switched to backuppc which is working great. > > > > I'm using backuppc. I just need something to dump the backuppc > > machine to tape for an offsite or last-resort backup. The problem > > is that backuppc is currently using 161GB (compressed) and the > > tapes only hold 40GB each, so I need something with some sort of > > intelligent tape-spanning capability. > > You are going to have more trouble than that. Backuppc will have > millions of hardlinks in that 161GB and nearly all file oriented > backup programs will take an impractical amount of time to deal > with them. And restoring will be even worse - basically everything > ends up building a table of inode numbers and scanning it for a match > on every hardlink.True, but this will only be used as a last-case scenario for restores, so in that case I'm willing to wait a bit.> > I haven't seen flexbackup. I'm currently evaluating afbackup. > > You really want a matching external hard drive so you can > dd an image copy to it. There has been quite a bit of discussion > on this topic on the backuppc mail list and I'm not sure anyone > has come up with an ideal solution. Or, you can use the 'archive > host' feature of backuppc to generate tar images of backup runs > optionally compressed and split to fit your media, but these > are copies of individual hosts and you loose the pooling feature.I agree that hard drives are faster, larger, and cheaper than tapes, but I can drop a tape onto a concrete floor and reasonably expect it to work afterwards. A hard drive might still work, but I wouldn't want to bet on it. -- Bowie
Robin Mordasiewicz wrote:> On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, Les Mikesell wrote: > >> On Wed, 2006-06-14 at 13:09 -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote: >>>>> I am looking for a simple backup program that I can use to backup >>>>> a CentOS box to a local tape drive. >> >>>> http://flexbackup.sf.net >>>> >>>> I used that for years, but the network grew and needed a "bigger" >>>> solution so I switched to backuppc which is working great. >>> >>> I'm using backuppc. I just need something to dump the backuppc >>> machine to tape for an offsite or last-resort backup. The problem >>> is that backuppc is currently using 161GB (compressed) and the >>> tapes only hold 40GB each, so I need something with some sort of >>> intelligent tape-spanning capability. >> >> You are going to have more trouble than that. Backuppc will have >> millions of hardlinks in that 161GB and nearly all file oriented >> backup programs will take an impractical amount of time to deal >> with them. And restoring will be even worse - basically everything >> ends up building a table of inode numbers and scanning it for a >> match on every hardlink. >> >>> I haven't seen flexbackup. I'm currently evaluating afbackup. >> >> You really want a matching external hard drive so you can >> dd an image copy to it. There has been quite a bit of discussion >> on this topic on the backuppc mail list and I'm not sure anyone >> has come up with an ideal solution. Or, you can use the 'archive >> host' feature of backuppc to generate tar images of backup runs >> optionally compressed and split to fit your media, but these >> are copies of individual hosts and you loose the pooling feature. >> > my .02$ is bacula > It spans tapes. fully featured, reliable, well documented etc.I used to use Bacula way back when, but restoring large amounts of data - 1TB range from tape is very slow. Went rsync to drives on another internal server, and a backup server in our colo. Rsync makes it very easy to do hourly, daily, weekly or monthly snapshots of data. HTH Mark