Re: [BackupPC-users] Swapping drives for offsite - the whole shebang
Will a BackupPC 3.2 system just work with a conf/log/pool/pc filesystem moved over from 3.1, or is there an upgrade process run on the data? If the latter, I imagine that would make it difficult to move that data back to 3.1? Just thinking of disaster recovery scenarios, maybe building a custom live-cd boot disc to store offsite with the data drive. -- Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free Love Thy Logs t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
[BackupPC-users] Swapping drives for offsite - the whole shebang
Here's an idea I have completely unrelated to my problem posting, looking for feedback. Goal: using single large HDDs as backup media rotating them offsite, in as simple and bullet-proof as possible a way. Strategy: two hard drives one with the base server OS installed, install BackupPC 3.1 via package management the other set up as one big partition (probably ext3), top-level folder BackupPC_TOPDIR under the latter: create conf and log move the contents of /etc/backuppc and /var/logs/backuppc contents to the above two new directories locations, and the contents of /var/lib/backuppc to the TOPDIR location itself, so everything related to BackupPC is there in one place (here's where I need to get the proper permissions, ideally as the specific chmod/chown/chgrp commands to use - any pointer appreciated) leaving the original directories empty as mount points use fstab to first mount the second drive at say /mnt/sdb3, then (using bind mounts) /mnt/sdb3/BackupPC_TOPDIR at /var/lib/backuppc then (more bind mounts) /var/log/backuppc at /var/lib/backuppc/log and /etc/backuppc at /var/lib/backuppc/conf I should be able to clone this second drive to another two, and transparently swap them out, effectively creating three entirely independent but functionally identical BackupPC servers. One is live, the second on the shelf on site, the third stored at a secure offsite location. Replace A with B, take A offsite and bring C back to sit on the shelf, next time replace B with C etc, rinse and repeat. Only downside is if the boss needs to restore a specific day's version of the corporate vision statement RIGHT NOW and that happens to be offsite, but that seems a small price to pay for the simplicity of the scheme. Obviously only works as long as everything fits on one disk - in my case not a problem. I suppose another server with the full historical set on LVM-over-RAID array would handle both those issues, as long as the single drive held at least one full snapshot, I still think the bullet-proof-ness of my scheme is better than an off-site-server mirrored over a WAN. Feedback on any gotchas, and the permissions details would be greatly appreciated. . . -- Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free Love Thy Logs t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] Swapping drives for offsite - the whole shebang
On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 2:36 PM, hans...@gmail.com wrote: Here's an idea I have completely unrelated to my problem posting, looking for feedback. Goal: using single large HDDs as backup media rotating them offsite, in as simple and bullet-proof as possible a way. Strategy: two hard drives one with the base server OS installed, install BackupPC 3.1 via package management the other set up as one big partition (probably ext3), top-level folder BackupPC_TOPDIR under the latter: create conf and log move the contents of /etc/backuppc and /var/logs/backuppc contents to the above two new directories locations, and the contents of /var/lib/backuppc to the TOPDIR location itself, so everything related to BackupPC is there in one place (here's where I need to get the proper permissions, ideally as the specific chmod/chown/chgrp commands to use - any pointer appreciated) leaving the original directories empty as mount points use fstab to first mount the second drive at say /mnt/sdb3, then (using bind mounts) /mnt/sdb3/BackupPC_TOPDIR at /var/lib/backuppc then (more bind mounts) /var/log/backuppc at /var/lib/backuppc/log and /etc/backuppc at /var/lib/backuppc/conf I should be able to clone this second drive to another two, and transparently swap them out, effectively creating three entirely independent but functionally identical BackupPC servers. One is live, the second on the shelf on site, the third stored at a secure offsite location. Replace A with B, take A offsite and bring C back to sit on the shelf, next time replace B with C etc, rinse and repeat. Only downside is if the boss needs to restore a specific day's version of the corporate vision statement RIGHT NOW and that happens to be offsite, but that seems a small price to pay for the simplicity of the scheme. Obviously only works as long as everything fits on one disk - in my case not a problem. I suppose another server with the full historical set on LVM-over-RAID array would handle both those issues, as long as the single drive held at least one full snapshot, I still think the bullet-proof-ness of my scheme is better than an off-site-server mirrored over a WAN. Feedback on any gotchas, and the permissions details would be greatly appreciated. . . There has been a vast amount of discussion on this list covering this topic so you should probably wade through the archives. My approach is a 3-member software RAID1 where 2 drives are always in the server and the 3rd is a set rotated offsite. This gives you an always-available current history plus a disaster-recovery copy and a spare or two. My drives are 750gig (set up some time ago) and I just recently got a laptop-size drive to work reasonably well as the rotating member - which took some tweaking since it has 4k sectors and the partition had to be aligned right. With this scheme you only have to unmount momentarily while breaking the raid, but realistically you can't do backups while the new member is syncing because the disk is too busy. Others are doing something similar with LVM snapshots. If you have good network bandwidth you can also simply run another independent instance elsewhere hitting the same targets. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com -- Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free Love Thy Logs t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev ___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] Swapping drives for offsite - the whole shebang
On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 2:59 AM, Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: There has been a vast amount of discussion on this list covering this topic so you should probably wade through the archives. My approach is a 3-member software RAID1 where 2 drives are always in the server and the 3rd is a set rotated offsite. This gives you an always-available current history plus a disaster-recovery copy and a spare or two. My drives are 750gig (set up some time ago) and I just recently got a laptop-size drive to work reasonably well as the rotating member - which took some tweaking since it has 4k sectors and the partition had to be aligned right. With this scheme you only have to unmount momentarily while breaking the raid, but realistically you can't do backups while the new member is syncing because the disk is too busy. Others are doing something similar with LVM snapshots. Yes I've waded through many megs' worth of the archives researching this, and discussed the topic with you in fact (maybe six months ago?), and my post is the result of my thought process after digesting them. Obviously my proclivity for simplicity is overriding the advantages of the other methods. For my situation, one key consideration is for a non-geek staffer to be able to get the data back if there's a fire/explosion whatever while I'm away on holiday or otherwise unavailable - the company doesn't have much depth in ICT support. I could walk them through getting Ubuntu+BPC installed and maybe the fstab edited, but would want to add creating an array from only one member etc. into the mix. . . If you have good network bandwidth you can also simply run another independent instance elsewhere hitting the same targets. This last is exactly what I'm proposing, but the independent instances are just getting swapped out sequentially rather than multiple machines running concurrently. So if at all possible I'd really appreciate feedback on the pro's and cons of my specific proposed method - can you (if not necessarily from you specifically Les, you = the list ) see particular gotcha's I haven't taken into account? -- Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free Love Thy Logs t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
Re: [BackupPC-users] Swapping drives for offsite - the whole shebang
On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 3:38 AM, Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com wrote: It turns out that a linux raid1 mirror looks just like the non-raid filesystem it contains - or enough that you can mount the single drive as if it were a normal partition. So you can treat the rotated member just the same as your single drive in a recovery scenario. I'd prefer not to have to deal with the break a mirror/fail the drive/swap it out/remirror routine. My idea is to simply bring the server down, swap out the one disk, reboot and walk away. One is that a drive failure will mean missed backups. That's true, but need to set up an auto-notification of the server going down to handle all the other possible failure causes anyway, and the B drive is right there on the shelf ready to go. In fact having it NOT inside the server eliminates the chance that it would be damaged by one of those other causes - I've had a failed PSU fry almost all the components in a machine. . . -- Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free Love Thy Logs t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev___ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net List:https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki:http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
