Hi. On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 12:52:57PM -0500, Lee wrote: > On 11/14/18, Reco <recovery...@enotuniq.net> wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 10:50:44AM -0500, Lee wrote: > >> On 11/14/18, Reco <recovery...@enotuniq.net> wrote: > >> > Hi. > >> > > >> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 10:01:38AM -0500, Lee wrote: > >> >> What are you using to backup your files to an encrypted usb drive? > >> > > >> > For the backup itself - dump(8) or xfsdump(8) (filesystem dependent). > >> > >> Which seems to require restore or xfsrestore? > > > > Precisely. > > > > > >> https://linux.die.net/man/8/xfsdump > >> The media format used by xfsdump can only be understood by xfsrestore. > >> I can't tell from a quick look at dump/restore if I can look at files > >> on the backup media or not > > > > No, you do not. You'll need restore/xfsrestore first. > > The whole purpose of a good filesystem backup is to capture all > > file/directory attributes (which include, but aren't limited to POSIX > > permissions, POSIX ACLs, SELinux labels, capability labels, extended > > attributes to name a few). That's where dump/xfsdump guarantee you to > > capture anything that a filesystem supports. > > > > If you're content with losing all this metadata in your backup - there > > are rsync, cpio or tar. Or all those 'backup solutions' based on those. > > Do I need all that metadata? This is for me at home so it's pretty > much a single user machine.
That's for you to decide. I'd say you definitely need it for the backups of / and /var and can *probably* skip it for /home, but YMMV. > >> > For the encryption of this hypothetical drive (I don't use USB drives > >> > for these purposes) - luks only. > >> > >> Why don't you like USB drives for these purposes? > > > > Because backing up something to NFS share is easier. > > but leaves you open to cryptolocker ransomware & various 'oh shit!' > moments when I do something stupid. Offline & offsite is worth a > certain amount of inconvenience to me. Nope. Because: a) You do not do backups as a regular user. b) You do not keep a single backup. Besides, avoiding all those cryptolockers is easy. You just need to learn to distinguish a trusted software from the untrusted. A trusted software comes to you with your OS (in this case - Debian main archive). An untrusted software comes from elsewhere. Keep to a trusted software and you'll be fine. Avoiding human mistakes is impossible indeed, hence the backups. And filesystem snapshots, but that's a different matter. > > And, I'm strong believer of 'machine works, human thinks' principle. > > Automating backups to NFS (and replicating them from there) is simple. > > Automating backup to USB drive - that's something that cannot be done > > without human intervention. > > > >> In other words, what am I missing? A good backup is run by cron. A bad backup is run manually. Simple as that. > > Encrypted backups have their purpose, of course. For storing backups > > offsite (whenever it's physical or cloud) encryption is invaluable. > > > > But, the encryption is only as secure as the management of the > > encryption key, and the only relatively secure example of that I can > > come up with is gpg. And utilizing gpg for unattended backups is painful > > to say the least. > > Which is why I liked truecrypt. Is luks roughly equivalent for > encrypting the whole drive? No, it's better. More encryption algorithms, definitely more code audit *and* virtually zero 'became superuser' vulnerabilities. Reco
