zfs discuss - Oct 2008 - Best practice recommendations for backing up to ZFS Fileserver

Greetings.

I am currently looking into setting up a better backup solution for our
family.

I own a ZFS Fileserver with a 5x500GB raidz. I want to back up data (not
the OS itself) from multiple PCs running linux oder windowsXP. The linux
boxes are connected via 1000Mbit, the windows machines either via
gigabit as well or 54Mbit WPA encrypted WLAN. So far i''ve set up
sharing
via NFS on the Solaris box and it works well from both Linux and Windows
(via SFU).

I am looking for a solution to do incremental backups without wasting
space on the fileserver and I want to be able to access a single file in
the backup in differnt versions without much hassle. I think it can be
done easily with ZFS and Snapshots?

What would be good ways to get the files to the fileserver? For linux I
thought of using rsync to sync the files over, than do a snapshot to
preserve that backup state. Would you recommend using rsync with NFS or
over ssh? (I assume the network is save enough for our needs.) Are there
better alternatives?

How to best get the data from the Windows machines to the Solaris box?
Just copying them over by hand would not delete files on the fileserver
in case some files are deleted on the windows box in between different
backups. Using rsync on windows is only possible with cygwin emulation.
Maybe there are better methods?


Anyone have a similar setup, recommendations, or maybe something I could
use as an idea?

Thanks in advance,

A. Drake

For *nix rsync
For windows rsyncshare
http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=77&func=startdown&id=18


On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Ares Drake <ares.drake at
googlemail.com>wrote:
> Greetings.
>
> I am currently looking into setting up a better backup solution for our
> family.
>
> I own a ZFS Fileserver with a 5x500GB raidz. I want to back up data (not
> the OS itself) from multiple PCs running linux oder windowsXP. The linux
> boxes are connected via 1000Mbit, the windows machines either via
> gigabit as well or 54Mbit WPA encrypted WLAN. So far i''ve set up
sharing
> via NFS on the Solaris box and it works well from both Linux and Windows
> (via SFU).
>
> I am looking for a solution to do incremental backups without wasting
> space on the fileserver and I want to be able to access a single file in
> the backup in differnt versions without much hassle. I think it can be
> done easily with ZFS and Snapshots?
>
> What would be good ways to get the files to the fileserver? For linux I
> thought of using rsync to sync the files over, than do a snapshot to
> preserve that backup state. Would you recommend using rsync with NFS or
> over ssh? (I assume the network is save enough for our needs.) Are there
> better alternatives?
>
> How to best get the data from the Windows machines to the Solaris box?
> Just copying them over by hand would not delete files on the fileserver
> in case some files are deleted on the windows box in between different
> backups. Using rsync on windows is only possible with cygwin emulation.
> Maybe there are better methods?
>
>
> Anyone have a similar setup, recommendations, or maybe something I could
> use as an idea?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> A. Drake
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>
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Ares Drake wrote:
> Greetings.
>
> I am currently looking into setting up a better backup solution for our
> family.
>
> I own a ZFS Fileserver with a 5x500GB raidz. I want to back up data (not
> the OS itself) from multiple PCs running linux oder windowsXP. The linux
> boxes are connected via 1000Mbit, the windows machines either via
> gigabit as well or 54Mbit WPA encrypted WLAN. So far i''ve set up
sharing
> via NFS on the Solaris box and it works well from both Linux and Windows
> (via SFU).
>
> Anyone have a similar setup, recommendations, or maybe something I could
> use as an idea?
I store all the data worth keeping on my windows boxes on either iSCSI
volumes exported from a ZFS server, or SMB shares from the same server. 
That way, nothing has to be coped and they never run out of space.

-- 
Ian.

If you are using rsync already, I would run it on server in daemon mode. And
there are Windows clients that support rsync protocol.
--
This message posted from opensolaris.org

zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org wrote on 10/19/2008 01:59:29 AM:
> Ares Drake wrote:
> > Greetings.
> >
> > I am currently looking into setting up a better backup solution for
our
> > family.
> >
> > I own a ZFS Fileserver with a 5x500GB raidz. I want to back up data
(not
> > the OS itself) from multiple PCs running linux oder windowsXP. The
linux
> > boxes are connected via 1000Mbit, the windows machines either via
> > gigabit as well or 54Mbit WPA encrypted WLAN. So far i''ve set
up
sharing
> > via NFS on the Solaris box and it works well from both Linux and
Windows
> > (via SFU).
> >
> > Anyone have a similar setup, recommendations, or maybe something I
could
> > use as an idea?
> I store all the data worth keeping on my windows boxes on either iSCSI
> volumes exported from a ZFS server, or SMB shares from the same server.
> That way, nothing has to be coped and they never run out of space.
I use rsync with the inplace-update setting and a blocksize matching the
zfs store.  I call it from the zfs server and snap after it finishes.
seems to allow for a massive amount of snaps as only changed blocks are
updated.  I make sure to --exclude volatile and non important files such as
swap.  I then share the snapshot directory via samba with vfs shadowcopy
enabled to allow for restores from any of the snaps via xp''s shadowcopy
interface.

3x raw storage on my zfs server allows me about 1 year of staggered
snapshots -- your milage will vary with data volatility and snap frequency.

-Wade