Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
I prefer to go the tape route myself. Currently, I use an 8mm SCSI tape to back two Debian boxes, a NeXTstation, and a couple of windows95 machines using ADSM (Adstar Distributed Storage Manager -- served from the NeXT). While the ADSM Mini-Howto goes into much better detail, you basically use the SCO binary for ADSM as a client on the Linux machines. While my NeXT is specifically used for backups, I do plan to experiment with the SCO server binaries sometime in the next month or so. And perhaps will update the Mini-Howto to make it fit. That is, if there is any great interest in using ADSM. Ryan __ Reply Separator _ Subject: How do people on this list backup stuff? Author: debian-user@lists.debian.org at Internet Date:1/4/97 5:09 PM I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper than a *quality* tape system? Just curious too hear opinions on this matter. -Walter -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Pete Templin wrote: > > On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Walter Tautz wrote: > > > I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another > > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > > than a *quality* tape system? > > > I'm using a perl script to automate a series of "dump"s. I run a full > backup of /, /usr, /var, /home once a week, with an incremental every > night except full night. For space reasons, I'd rather not post the > script here, but it's free to anyone for the asking > > I have an HP/Colorado T1000 tape drive, but wouldn't recommend it. It's > quite small relative to my filesystems (400MB per tape), and I'd love to > hear what tape drives work well (i.e. easily) on a SCSI bus. It's slow, > IMO, but that doesn't matter when your backups run via cron. I am using a Seagate (formerly Conner) TS8000 at home and a TS4000 at work - 8MB and 4MB respectively. They are really the same drive, the 8000 accepts the Travan cartridge format. These are SCSI-2 devices, and use a "wide QIC" tape. The mfr. claims up to 50MB / min. x-fer rate, but I have seen 20MB maximum, with 10-12 more the average over the ethernet. This is with 32bit (Buslogic) bus mastering controllers. The TS4000 does daily backups of a 1G Novell server, and has been in service for approx 2.5 months. I have used the 8000 to backup (tar) and restore Redhat 4.0, with no problems to report. At approx. $325 for the 4000 and $369 for the 8000, I think these are very economical choices, competitive with the hard drive alternative. The 4G cart's (1.86 non-compressed) retail for $30, the 8G for $40. = Looking for crack? Call 1-CIA-ARMS-4-DRUGS | "When I took bread to the (see http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/| poor, people said I was a Don't be too concerned, they have promised | saint. But when I asked why to investigate themselves! | they were poor, people said D.A.R.E. to abolish the CIA | I was a Communist." | John Karns | Father Helder Camera [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
> > Before I tell you what I do to make a perfect and bootable copy of your > > current Linux setup, let me tell you how I have my hard drives configured. > > the problem with this is that if you backup errors or a program upgrade > that you later decided that you didn't want you can't get to the previous > backups because you just overwrote them with the new backup. Absolutely, it is a problem. That's why I keep a second proven but older backup drive. Doesn't solve all the problems, but it will provide an excellent base from which to start repairs. > also, it is better to put backups on removable media so that it is > possible to move them offsite. and that doesn't mean that you are stuck > with tape drives either -- i use a Jaz drive. Yeap. I have a great fear of fire. That's why I put the second drive in a fire proof box. Paul Serice -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
Walter Tautz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > than a *quality* tape system? Tapes are still cheaper. You can buy cheap hard drives for 10 cents/meg, but you can buy tapes for 1 or 2 cents/meg. As to software? I use tob. Guy -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
On Sun, 5 Jan 1997, ugs wrote: > Before I tell you what I do to make a perfect and bootable copy of your > current Linux setup, let me tell you how I have my hard drives configured. on the one hand this sounds like a good system because your backup is bootable, but some problems come to mind. mostly with the theory, not the method. i'm assuming that you just keep one backup copy, so correct me if i am wrong. the problem with this is that if you backup errors or a program upgrade that you later decided that you didn't want you can't get to the previous backups because you just overwrote them with the new backup. also, it is better to put backups on removable media so that it is possible to move them offsite. and that doesn't mean that you are stuck with tape drives either -- i use a Jaz drive. i also organize my linux installation so that backups are small but important stuff is always safeguarded. first, when i use a distribution (i use Redhat at the moment but wish to switch to Debian once things settle down a bit with the 1.2 release) i use it just to get the basic system installed and up and running. basically i still have a stock Redhat distribution on my drive. i then make good use of /usr/local/ (which is on a seperate partition) by downloading all `extra' software that i don't feel serves as basic part of the unix system in .tgz format. I then install them to the /usr/local/ filesystem making symlinks to places elsewhere, but only if required (you can change a lot of default behavior and installation locations at compile time if you just futz around a bit). (`basic' may be different for everyone but for me it includes: the base system, XFree86, libraries, TeX/LaTeX, basic text editors, development stuff, and anything related to the _basic_ operation of the system). that way i can just backup /usr/local/, any configuration files throughout the system, the mail and news spools, and the /home filesystem. all the `basic' unix applications and tools can be reinstalled from a distribution as the core system. then my /usr/local/, /home/, and /var/ filesystems can be restored from backups and mounted into the system. hopefully this makes sense to someone. any comments would be greatly appreciated. -- This message was delayed because the list mail delivery agent was down.
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
> I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > than a *quality* tape system? Before I tell you what I do to make a perfect and bootable copy of your current Linux setup, let me tell you how I have my hard drives configured. For my everyday setup, I go into the BIOS setup program and turn off all IDE support and boot from a SCSI hard drive using /dev/sda6. I keep my backup on the IDE hard drive /dev/hda. Thus, to boot my backup, all I have to do is go into the BIOS setup program and enable IDE support. When IDE is enabled, the computer will boot from /dev/hda. Thus, if my Linux partition ever crashes, I don't have to boot a stripped down version of Linux from floppy. Instead, I get the full blown version in the state it was in at the time of the last backup. The trick is to get your current Linux setup (hereinafter known as /dev/sda6) over to your backup partition (hereinafter know as /dev/hda1) and then to make it bootable. Be extra careful with the "make it bootable" partion of what follows because it entails installing LILO which, if done improperly, can have very serious ramifications. BACKUP TO HARD DRIVE mini-HOWTO (Paul Serice, copyright 1997, use at your own risk, and analogize for your setup!) 1) Format your backup partition: "mke2fs /dev/hda1" (Of course, if your backup partition is other than hda1, then use it instead. Needless to say, this step is irreversible so get it right.) 2) Mount the newly formatted partition: "mount -t ext2 /dev/hda1 /mnt" 3) I'm not sure if this next step is necessary, but delete the "lost+found" directory on the newly formatted partition. a) "cd /mnt" b) "rm -r lost+found" 4) Make an exact copy of your Linux setup and put it on your backup partition: a) "cd /" b) "find / -xdev -print | cpio -pdam /mnt" NOTE: I found this method in _Unix Unleashed_. I think it is superior to using tar and gzip. 5) Make your backup bootable: a) Edit /mnt/etc/fstab (*not* /etc/fstab). This file tells Linux which partition you want to use as your root partition. You need to let Linux know you'll be booting to /dev/hda1 as your root partition instead of to /dev/sda6. To accomplish this, you just delete the "/dev/sda6" and replace it with "/dev/hda1" leaving the rest of that line like you found it. b) Edit /mnt/etc/lilo.conf (*not* /etc/lilo.conf). Near the top of this file find and edit (or create) the lines that say "boot=/dev/sda6" and "root=/dev/sda6". The first line tells lilo where to install itself (in this case lilo installs itself into the extended partion /dev/sda6. The second line tells lilo that the root partition will be /dev/sda6. On my system, I boot the backup straight from the Master Boot Record. Thus, I edit the "boot=" parameter to read "boot=/dev/hda". Because the root is /dev/hda1, the "root=" parameter becomes "root=/dev/hda1. Analogize as necessary. c) Now, tell lilo to install itself. At this point, you should understand something about lilo. If you are installing lilo for /dev/hda1, it needs to have /dev/hda1 mounted as the root partition. Thus, if you just type "lilo", lilo will read /etc/lilo.conf and see your original Linux setup instead of your Linux backup. If you run lilo with the -r parameter, lilo will temporarily switch the root partition to the one you specify. To do this, type "lilo -r /mnt". NOTE: Because using lilo can be destructive I suggest you first run lilo using "lilo -r /mnt -v -v -v -t". This will run lilo and show you what it will do without making any changes to your system. 6) To restore from your backup, just boot to /dev/hda1 and use it as your original. IMPORTANT: It's a good idea to have a floppy which will let you boot directly to your root Linux partition when your MBR gets futzed. (I use this diskette to boot my original Linux partition so that I may back it up because, once the IDE hard drive is on-line, the BIOS will try to boot my backup skipping the normal bootup procedure of reading the MBR on the SCSI.) To create this diskette, if your kernel is /vmlinuz then 1) "fdformat /dev/fd0H1440" to low-level format a floppy. (See "man fdformat" and "man mknod" to create /dev/fd0H1440 if you don't have this device already.) Good Luck Paul Serice -- This message was delayed because the list mail delivery agent was down.
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Walter Tautz wrote: > I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > than a *quality* tape system? I back up selected files and directories to a 2nd HD using the menu driven program, taper, which is available as a package. It seems to work fine (and fast), but I have yet to need to do a partial or full restoration. Syrus. -- Syrus Nemat-Nasser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>UCSD Physics Dept. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
> I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically
> I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary
> to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another
> hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper
> than a *quality* tape system?
I use the taper program for backups. I used to use a 125mb tape drive, but
I got tired of the slowness, switching tapes, and the errors that always
pop up on tapes.
So I dedicated a 500mb partition on one of my hard drives for a backup
partition, and I'm using taper to back up to it now. Taper can backup to
any medium, it seems. I use a commandline like this to start taper:
taper -T l -b /backup/backup.taper
The "-T l" sets the Type of backup to file, so taper will just write to a
file. The -b tells taper what file to use.
I've been using this for months, and I'm happy with it. Backups are much
faster now. One thing to bear in mind: don't use the same disk for /home
and /backup! A dedicated backup hd is probably a good idea.
Taper's available as a debian package.
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Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Walter Tautz wrote: > I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > than a *quality* tape system? I'm using a perl script to automate a series of "dump"s. I run a full backup of /, /usr, /var, /home once a week, with an incremental every night except full night. For space reasons, I'd rather not post the script here, but it's free to anyone for the asking I have an HP/Colorado T1000 tape drive, but wouldn't recommend it. It's quite small relative to my filesystems (400MB per tape), and I'd love to hear what tape drives work well (i.e. easily) on a SCSI bus. It's slow, IMO, but that doesn't matter when your backups run via cron. --Pete ___ Peter J. Templin, Jr. Client Services Analyst Computer & Communication Services tel: (717) 524-1590 Bucknell University [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How do people on this list backup stuff?
On Sat, 4 Jan 1997, Walter Tautz wrote: > I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically > I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary > to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another Tape is common. > hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper > than a *quality* tape system? Not really. With a harddrive, you can not have 20 copies in 20 locations. :) The good thing about tape systems, is that you can make a backup, and take it off location, or have a different one for each day of the week. That way, if something got screwed up on Tuesday, and you copy to the other hard drive every day, and its Friday... its been engraved on your only backup. With the tape, you can pull out mondays backup, and restore what you need from there. One good solution to have is a mirror harddrive, for HARDWARE FAILURE, and a tape backup, for DATA FAILURE. -- Daniel Stringfield mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://users.southeast.net/~servo Send email for more information on the Jacksonville Linux Users Group! -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
How do people on this list backup stuff?
I am curious to find out how people back stuff? Specifically I am interested in finding out whether it is necessary to use a tape system or is it also possible to use another hardrive. Afterall, it would appear a hardrive is cheaper than a *quality* tape system? Just curious too hear opinions on this matter. -Walter -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
