Re: [cobalt-users] Backups

[elmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Chris Mason so wrote:

} I could cron a tar/gzip scp the file to another server, but what files
} should I tar. Obviously the whole /home tree, what else? I have compiled
} some software, such as php4, so I would be pretty stuck even if I had a new
} clean box to restore to.


Even if you are colocated you might consider doing as we do. We're
not colocated so it's a bit easier here but the system is pretty
slick and won't put much of a load on your connection. Leave the
log files alone and it could be done over a dialup... the first pass
would be a bear but the following passes would race by.

	We use rsync and back everything up to servers which are
dedicated to this purpose. rsync only transfers the differences
between the files archived and the files being archived so it
doesn't take a whole lot of bandwidth. With the cost of drives now
this ends being cheaper than tape and, imo, much stronger and much
more reliable than tape.

	We've been buying factory referbished high end servers that
are about two years behind the ball and stuff them with the largest
drives we can get. Just bought 3 more Dells for this purpose
yesterday. We run rsync off cron and thereby do a rotating schedule
of backups - the server, including the sites on it, each week with 4
running weeks of backups and the sites every day with 7 running days
of backups - plus the weekly's mentioned previously. Once you get
rsync setup the system is totally management and trouble free.
Adding more servers is as easy as copying a couple of scripts to the
new server and editing a few on the backup server. rsync runs nicely
through SSH so everything is nice and secure too. Worse yet,
perhaps, if you rysnc the passwords etc. over and update the backup
server accordingly you can preserve the sites and the server as is -
just FTP or rsnyc it back and you're back in business.

	You don't need to run hardly any sevices on the backup
servers so maintaining them and keeping them secure is not much of a
problem at all. Just lock them down and forget them.

	A close friend set up a similar system for his colocated
servers and just does the same as we do but he does it over his
cable connection, backing everything up to an old PII 133 he has at
his house.

	This is not that hard to do. rsync is pretty simple. You can
install it and set it to backup an entire server in less than an
hour - a couple of minutes after you get the hang of it.

	Just my thoughts...