Create a hot backup server machine?
I'm trying to create an offsite hot backup of a FreeBSD server. If the primary server fails, I want to transport the spare machine to the existing site and bring it up as a replacement, with little or no reconfiguration necessary. Nightly mirroring would be adequate in this situation. The system is not running live transaction processing or anything comparable. Is there a straightforward, automated way to mirror a whole FreeBSD system, using open source software? I'm testing ftpcopy to remotely mirror the files and directories. Ftpcopy performs an incremental comparison using dates and file sizes, which should minimize the nightly backup time and traffic load. So far that part seems to be working well. But I haven't figured out how to get the users, groups and permissions mirrored. There are about 200 users. And there may be other gotchas I haven't thought of yet. Thank you very much. Regards, Ralph ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Create a hot backup server machine?
On Sun, 30 Mar 2003 17:18:54 -0500 Ralph Dratman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm trying to create an offsite hot backup of a FreeBSD server. If the primary server fails, I want to transport the spare machine to the existing site and bring it up as a replacement, with little or no reconfiguration necessary. Nightly mirroring would be adequate in this situation. The system is not running live transaction processing or anything comparable. Is there a straightforward, automated way to mirror a whole FreeBSD system, using open source software? rsync? ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Create a hot backup server machine?
On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 05:18:54PM -0500, Ralph Dratman wrote: I'm trying to create an offsite hot backup of a FreeBSD server. If the primary server fails, I want to transport the spare machine to the existing site and bring it up as a replacement, with little or no reconfiguration necessary. Nightly mirroring would be adequate in this situation. The system is not running live transaction processing or anything comparable. Is there a straightforward, automated way to mirror a whole FreeBSD system, using open source software? I'm testing ftpcopy to remotely mirror the files and directories. Ftpcopy performs an incremental comparison using dates and file sizes, which should minimize the nightly backup time and traffic load. So far that part seems to be working well. But I haven't figured out how to get the users, groups and permissions mirrored. There are about 200 users. And there may be other gotchas I haven't thought of yet. Sounds to me like this is a job for rsync(1) --- see http://rsync.samba.org/ or net/rsync in ports. You can use rsync to maintain a remote copy of a partition, as you describe. rsync(1) will transmit only the minimum necessary over the wire in order to bring the two filesystems into synch. Eg. to save or update a copy of the /var partition on your live server to a backup machine: # rsync -avx --delete /var/ backup.example.com:/backups/var/ By default on FreeBSD, rsync(1) will use ssh(1) for remote shell access. For unattended access you probably need to set up appropriate ssh keys without passwords, but definitely limiting access based on the 'from=' hostname and/or command used via options in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file, as described in the 'AUTHORIZED_KEYS FILE FORMAT' section of sshd(8) -- you should also turn off the three types of forwarding with an autologin key. See also http://www.snailbook.com/faq/no-passphrase.auto.html Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Create a hot backup server machine?
On Sunday, Mar 30, 2003, at 14:18 US/Pacific, Ralph Dratman wrote: I'm trying to create an offsite hot backup of a FreeBSD server. If the primary server fails, I want to transport the spare machine to the existing site and bring it up as a replacement, with little or no reconfiguration necessary. Nightly mirroring would be adequate in this situation. The system is not running live transaction processing or anything comparable. Is there a straightforward, automated way to mirror a whole FreeBSD system, using open source software? I'm testing ftpcopy to remotely mirror the files and directories. Ftpcopy performs an incremental comparison using dates and file sizes, which should minimize the nightly backup time and traffic load. So far that part seems to be working well. But I haven't figured out how to get the users, groups and permissions mirrored. There are about 200 users. And there may be other gotchas I haven't thought of yet. The approach I am using is to tar the system to a file on the production machine and then rsync that file with my off-site backup machine. I leave it as a tar file on the backup as its almost impractical for me to move that machine to the production site. I would replace the machine on the production site and then copy the file back from the backup machine and un-tar it. In your case I would create the tar file, rsync it to the backup machine and then un-tar it there. Tar retains permissions and ownership properly. Leave the previous tar file on the backup machine as rsync will use it to reduce the download time. My backup file (4 servers) is just over 4 GB. The rsync transfer only sends 1/16th of it. Much of the archived data does not change very often. -- Doug ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
