On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:03:59 -0700 Rich Shepard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 May 2010, Tim Wescott wrote: > > > What is your preferred backup system? > > Suggestions? > > Dirvish <http://www.dirvish.org/>. > > The docs are a bit obtuse, but the help on the mail list is > outstanding. I switched from tape to an external, USB hard drive > (300G currently) and use dirvish running daily from root's crontab. > > I used to make weekly full backups and daily incremental backups; > now each night's backup (using rsync) are the changes from the night > before. You can restore the system to any prior state (or restore > individual files) as long as you have them on the drive. You can > exclude filesystems (e.g., /tmp) where files disappear so they don't > have a revised version for dirvish to find and copy. You can set > expiration periods however you want; I keep daily backups for 2 weeks > and full backups for a month. Keith keeps everything forever. > > While you'll spend time getting your head around how it works and > setting up banks (hosts), vaults (filesystems), the initial storage > drive directory setup, and initial images, it's worth the effort. > Once that's done you'll have complete images of your systems ... as > long as you remember to turn on the backup drive each evening. :-) > > Rich > Another vote for Dirvish here. I've used some of the backup-to-DVD programs (like DAR), and some of the old reliables, like tar and dump, but Dirvish works really well for me. I don't need anything whiz-bang fancy, since I'm just backing up my personal machines, and Dirvish does the job well. I have a 500GB WD MyBook that I use as the backup drive. It has backups for several different systems in it (three Linux boxen, my music collection, and a Windows machine), yet the drive is only about half full. Yes, Dirvish will back up a Windows machine if you need to, only the Dirvish server needs to be running Linux. Dirvish requires that the backup drive be formatted with a Unix-type of filesystem that supports hard links. It is a bit of a pain to set up; as Rich said, the documentation is less than completely clear. Still, the information you need _is_ all there. And, if you need help you can always ask on the Dirvish mailing list; the folks there are quite friendly and helpful. Once it's set up, you don't need to mess with it any further, it Just Works. Which reminds me, I've got to set up Dirvish on my shiny-new-from-Free Geek desktop box, so I can back it up! :-) --Dale -- Si hoc legere scis nimium eriditionis habes. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
