backup strategy (Re: dump | restore fails)

Mikhail T. mi+thun at aldan.algebra.com
Thu Mar 26 18:52:48 PDT 2009


Greg Black написав(ла):
> Sorry, this person is *not* making backups in any meaningful fashion.
> Unless you verify regularly (preferably every time you make a backup)
> that you can restore both parts of the backup and the entire thing, you
> are not making backups.
To qualify for your (and your kind's) recognition then, a person needs 
to have at least as much extra storage capacity as the largest 
filesystem they are backing up. They also need non-trivial scripting 
abilities, because the OS doesn't include anything like what you are 
describing (and I already do consider scheduling dumps via cron 
"trivial", which may be a stretch). Yours may thus be an acceptable 
requirement for a multi-computer shop with dedicated system 
administration personnel, but for a private home user with only one 
computer this simply is not reasonable.

Stating this as a requirement is ridiculous -- unless you are prepared 
to say, that such people should not own a computer (with worthy data) at 
all. And that's even more ridiculous... Make your pick.

I would agree with you, if the chosen backup method involved some 
complex or third-party tools. But if the simple, OS-supplied orthogonal 
dump/restore don't work together, then the OS is broken -- plain and 
simple, and pointing a finger at the user: "Well, it is all your fault, 
because you relied on us providing you with working utilities, 
ha-ha-ha!" -- is the lamest excuse imaginable.

    -mi

P.S. Some people have actually volunteered to help debug this problem 
and I'm working on providing them with data (the troublesome partition 
is, sadly, over 170Gb, so it takes a while). Any results/conclusions 
will be posted under the original subject.
P.P.S. The data transferred fine using tar, but that is not the point -- 
the bug (confirmed by at least one more person) -- needs to be fixed 
before a higher-profile embarrassment...


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