using samba for backups

[anubis]

>
> Are there any potential pitfalls to this approach, iow are there
> any compatibility issues that come up if I copy files from a nix
> box to a windows box and vice versa?

The problem I can see is that you may have problems with attributes.
It depends on what you are trying to backup.  With data you can just 
copy from windows to samba.  Depending on how you have it set up you 
should be able to keep the windows file attributes.

We use rsync to make hourly backups of all our data on a mirror server 
to allow users to access data if the windows fileserver goes down.  
This gives us time to fix the problem without 50 people demanding to 
know when we will have the problem fixed.

With the os use a native tool designed to backup and restore the os.  
This will make sure that you have the proper file attributes when 
restoring.

We backup our windows servers to a samba share using both v2i and 
veritas backupexec.  they can both backup to file so we just store 
the backup files on the samba servers.  v2i has network support and 
you can boot off the v2i disk, browse to the samba share and then 
restore the whole os.

For bsd we do dumps of the os using dump and break up the dumpfiles 
into cd sized chunks then store them on removable drives.  This could 
be anything even your windows machines.  If there is a problem, write 
them to cds reboot your server with the fixit cd and restore.


>
> On the side it's getting to be such a pleasant development
> environment on my lan that I can't help shake this awful feeling
> that something's going to mess up big time.

I have trouble trying to not think of my bsd boxes in terms of windows 
reliability.  Once started the bsd boxes just keep on trucking.  Its 
taken a while but I can now just rely on the bsd boxes to do their 
job while I now only worry about windows.   At then end of the month 
we laugh and chant the quote from a MS employee.  "We are seeing 
crazy uptimes of 30+ days now"