[dundee] OpenWRT on a Linksys WAG354G

[Philipp Geyer]

Rick Moynihan wrote:
> 2008/9/28 Philipp Geyer <nistur at googlemail.com>:
>   
>> We have recently removed the Ubuntu router we had sitting here due to a
>> harddrive dying (don't worry Lee, I backed up the scripts you took hours
>> writing) but now we have no form of repository or backup space as we're
>> just using a Linksys WAG354G.
>>
>> I have a NAS enclosure with a 320GB HDD in it that I rarely use, I was
>> thinking if I could get cvs or (preferably) rsync to backup directories
>> and synchronise between my PC and laptop then it'd b great, I had a look
>> at OpenWRT but it went over my head by quite a bit. I found this:
>>    http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Linksys/WAG354G
>> But I am unhappy doing this myself as I *will* break it for a while
>> before I get it to work and we sort of need the internet here.
>>
>> Firstly, is it unwise running rsync on this?
>> Secondly (if the answer to 1 is not really), is there someone we could
>> persuade (with various forms of alcohol if necessary) to take a look at
>> this for us?
>> Secondly (if the answer to 1 is yes), does anyone have any suggestions
>> what could be done?
>>
>> Thanks
>>     
>
> It's not clear to me exactly what your question is here... Is it that
> you want to know about backup solutions or installing OpenWRT?  I've
> no experience with OpenWRT but to answer the backup parts of the
> question:
>
> Firstly don't go anywhere near CVS, as it was always rubbish; and it's
> not really a backup solution (more a source control system - and a
> poor one at that).  You could however use a source control system for
> backups; which does have the advantage of being able to rollback and
> tag (label particular snapshots).  Some people have used subversion
> for this, but I'd avoid SVN if possible as I've had numerous problems
> with it and it's dependencies breaking.  Plus I've experienced too
> many incompatibilities between the server and client.
>
> I tend to keep most of my important work under source control anyway,
> and use a combination of email (cc'ing important files/attachments
> into my gmail account) and occasionally duplicating data elsewhere.
> This works for me, as what's important to me tends to be code and the
> occasional document.  As I'm a *BIG* fan of git though, I have been
> tempted to try this, and it might be worth looking at:
>
> http://eigenclass.org/hiki/gibak-backup-system-introduction
>
> Git has the advantage that backing up the backup (or repo) is stupid
> simple (just tar up the .git directory).  Also there's little or no
> config required.  And it should be easy to distribute the backup too,
> maintaining multiple local/remote copies.
>
> rsync is fine for backups, and I can't think of any reason why this
> would be unwise, as it's pretty good at one way mirroring.  However
> there are some problems with this approach, i.e. if you accidentally
> delete a file locally and mirror the deletion then you've lost your
> backup.  With a bit more scripting you can mitigate some of these
> issues:
>
> http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/
>
> If you want to perform two way mirroring, then you might want to look
> at unison, which is pretty damn good... though I believe development
> on this project has mostly stopped.
>
> http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
>
> Hope this is some use,
>
> R.
>
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>   



Ok, sorry if it was a little unclear. The whole thing was because I'm 
trying to organise some sort of synchronisation of documents between my 
PC and my laptop, both running multiple OSs. If it isn't done 
automagically then it's unlikely to last all too long before I forget to 
use it and then gets abandonned.

I would also like to have source control for any programming I do, the 
university has a CVS server on their "kydd" machine that we use for our 
ps2 work (the only version control the PS2s have on them) so I'm 
familiar with that, although we can't use it outside of the university 
very easily. I have also had SVN on our ubuntu router and had a little 
play around with that, although I normally used the CVS that was also on 
it for the sole reason that I could have all my work in one place, and 
access it from any machine I'm planning on using (including the 
university PS2s)

I haven't looked into distrubuted version control much yet mainly 
because for any purposes I'm planning on using it for it seems a little 
complex.

Back to the synchronisation. I considered using CVS but constantly 
adding new files, deleting them and commiting seemed like a lot of 
hassle. I looked at unison but it seemed to again not be precisely what 
I want. It seemed to be more peer to peer whereas I wanted a more 
definate client/server so I wouldn't have to have my PC on to have the 
newest documents on my laptop. Unison may be able to do this but from 
what I saw it looked more complicated to do something like this than it 
would using rsync.

Which leads me to the linksys router.
As it's (currently) coping under our workload, we've indefinately 
retired the ubuntu box as it uses far more power than the tiny linksys, 
however it doesn't have any services we could use. Basically, I decided 
that what would work best was to get rsync running on a samba share on 
the router, if that would work. Possibly also some sort of version 
control to the same place, depending on whether the router can take it. 
However, I know next to nothing about the workings of the router and how 
one would go about setting the thing up, the link I sent had photos and 
diagrams of taking it apart and attaching a serial console to it... 
which I'm fairly sure would cause me to turn it into a odd shaped brick.

I hadn't seen gibak (as I haven't yet looked at git much) but that's 
definately an option, although I don't really want to install cygwin to 
get the same thing working under windows... there appears to be a 
msys/mingw version...I'll have a look

So yeah, I've babbled far too much again... meh, summary?
1) Would like to know if it's "safe" to use rsync(/git) on OpenWRT.
2) same as above but with CVS (still using the PS2s this year)
3) Are there any better suggestions than possibly burning out the router?
4) Can anyone lend a hand with the OpenWRT at all?

Thanks again