Best remote backup method?

[Paul Schmehl]

--On Thursday, May 17, 2007 11:30:00 +0200 Peter Schuller 
<peter.schuller at infidyne.com> wrote:

>> Also, dump/restore allows you to use snapshots on a live filesystem (I
>> would test it properly on a large FS with heavy activity).
>
> But it's worth pointing out that this is fully possibly with any backup
> tool - just run mksnap_ffs and backup a mounted snapshot. I do this with
> rdiff-backup for example.
>
>> Now, if you are worried about "backing up the whole filesystem"...well,
>> just tell dump not to dump it :)
>>
>> man chflags (in particular, the nodump flag)
>> man dump (in particular, -h )
>
> The problem with this is for me two-fold:
>
> (1) It's a global property. I can't take different backups that
> include/exclude different things.
>
> (2) I can't easily express "backup /usr/var/db/my-important-database"
> without seting "nodump" on a bunch of stuff except that. In other words,
> I want exclude by default, while dump and the chflags system provides
> include by default.
>
> That said I do like dump's integration with snapshots and overall
> coherent feeling. If backup diskspace and bandwidth was not a concern
> I'd use it.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.  You've given me a 
great deal to think about.  I'll be reading over the responses again, 
carefully, and decide what I think the best answer is.

-- 
Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Senior Information Security Analyst
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/