USB HD based backup schemes

[Michael W. Holdeman]

On Saturday 26 April 2008 16:26:53 Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
> I am hoping that this is on-topic for the questions list.  If not, I
> apologize.
>
> I have a couple of FreeBSD systems, and I must confess that I haven't
> set systematic back-ups of them.
>
> I've taken a quick look at both the Bacula and Amanda documentation,
> but for reasons below I'll list why I don't think that they are idea
> for my rather simple situation.
>
> Each system has less than 20G to be backed up, including OS and
> ports.  One of the systems, dobby, is physically difficult to get to.
> I would like dobby to be a network client for backup.  The other,
> kreacher, is more conveniently placed, and actually has a cool little
> USB hard-drive drive dock.  I've tested that and it works.  I'd like
> this other machine
>
> So far, what I've been doing is running level 0 dumps on both kreacher
> and dobby.  In each case, I've had enough space in /tmp to create dump
> files in /tmp.  When done on kreacher, I've copied them over to a USB
> drive.  The ones from dobby I've scp'ed over to kreacher.
>
> At worst I could script this, but it I can't be sure I'll always have
> the space in /tmp.  I need to get the mounting of the USB drive clean
> and stuff like that.  Also, always running Level 0 dumps is bad for a
> number of obvious reasons.
>
> My needs aren't to be able to always have the ability to recover some
> file to the state it was a week ago Thursday.  (I wouldn't mind that,
> but that's not my primary goal).  My primary goal is disaster
> recovery:  In the event of a disk crash, fire, or I really mess up the
> system.  Kreacher will shortly be running mysql-server with a couple
> of very small databases.  Otherwise this are pretty static servers
> (light mail, DNS, DHCP, light HTTP).  Neither machine can hold
> additional disks internally or is otherwise expandable.
>
> Both Amanda seems designed for back-up to tape.  Bacula, frankly,
> seems too complicated.
>
> I'm sure that I could roll my own with dump or such, but I'm sure that
> I would leave important things out and that this has already been done
> by people who are smarter and more experienced than I am.  So
> recommendations please.

I have the same basic needs. I have been getting some success  using (honestly 
my linux desktop, FBSD 5.4 servers) rsnapshot
http://www.rsnapshot.org/
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/217

Dont get me wrong, I would really prefer a gui setup, which is in fact why I 
started with rsnapshot as I am using kubuntu and there is a (retrospekt) app 
to do as winserver2000 to browse and do restores, but now that kde4.0 is out 
and it doesnt work with dolphin I am just continueing to use it for the 
backups. I use a desktop search engine to find the files when I need to 
restore one..

I know not necessarily what you are looking for but just my .02.


Mike