CB wrote:
Can anyone suggest approaches for backing up a small home network (2
linux pcs and a linux/winxp dual-booting laptop). My criteria are:
* automaticity. It just won't happen unless it does itself once set up.
I'll probably have to trigger the laptop one manually, but even there
I'd like user data to be regularly (or even constantly?) synced with
backup if possible.
* use of existing media: I can't buy anything new and expensive, so have
to be able to back up either to cd's (not likely though: would need a
stack) or an external usb hard drive. My machines only have a total of
about 150GB of disk space.
* ease of setup. Obviously I'll have to spend a bit of time to set it
up, but I'd really like it not to take me days, and I'm no linux expert.
Possible things I've glanced at include rsync (at least for user data),
cpio, tar, backuppc (anyone used it? looks interesting), mondorescue.
I'm interested in real personal experience: it seems to me that any of
these tools *could* do what I need but I'd love to hear from someone who
has really used them with success.
I you have a spare disk with enough space, this will work great.
I use this method, the possibilities of both disks failing at
the same time are slim (yes it can happen). You mention a laptop
but do not say what OS it is running, I will assume it is Linux.
Dump is a great command to dump file systems to just about
anything.
I have a second disk which gets mounted as /backup and here is
a simple dump command to backup my /home partition:
This command will do a complete backup of the /home partition
writing it to a file in the /backup partition with the name
being: home.level0.epoch-2004-10-09, this is run once a week.
dump 0uf /backup/home.level0.epoch-`date +%F` /home
On a daily basis I want to backup just things that have changed
since the last full:
dump 2uf /backup/home.level2.epoch-`date +%F` /home
To restore files, you use the command restore.
dump and restore are included with Linux, for more information
on dump and restore, refer to the man pages.
BTW: dump and restore were created by BSD UNIX.
Mike
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