[Lancaster] file server with backups - advice wanted

[andy baxter]

Hi joost,

Thanks for the info. I think what I really want is a client server 
system with a server that can run on the file server, and (ideally) a 
windows client that people in the office can use for pulling files out 
of backup themselves rather than having to ask me. Back in time looks 
good for a single machine, but I want something that will work over a 
network.

I'm looking at projects like bacula and amanda, but wondering if they 
are a bit over specified - bacula in particular looks positively baroque 
in its complexity.

cheers,

andy

Joost Noppen wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
> Can't answer all of your questions, but at least some pointers on the 
> backup clients. There are a number of options you might want to look at:
>
> - back in time
> - time vault
> - simple backup
>
> All these work client side, but you can automate their execution using 
> cron. I myself use back in time which is akin to Apple's time machine, 
> with a very usable graphical front-end. This is tied to a shell script 
> that triggers a backup once a day to an external hard drive. In the 
> end, these tools really all build on rsync to do their magic. You even 
> get incremental backup with it.
>
> I imagine you can run this as long as the backup server has access to 
> the drives where the files are stored (read access should suffice). 
> Otherwise you might want to look at peter's backup, a gzip based 
> program for Windows. The people would have to trigger the backup 
> themselves though.
>
> Bit of text this,if you have questions just let me know.
>
> Cheers,
> Joost
>
> ----- Reply message -----
> From: "andy baxter" <andy at earthsong.free-online.co.uk>
> Date: Mon, Feb 1, 2010 18:15
> Subject: [Lancaster] file server with backups - advice wanted
> To: "Lancaster Linux User Group" <lancaster at mailman.lug.org.uk>
>
> Hi all,
>
> The boss at the place I'm working has asked me to look into setting up a
> linux based file server for them, with a proper backup schedule. There
> are a bit over half a dozen employees at the moment, but this may
> increase in the future.
>
> I haven't done anything like this before, so if anyone can answer any of
> the following questions, it would be a big help:
> - Most of the machines use windows, so I'll be using samba. How well
> does this work in practice with a network of windows machines?
> - Any advice on what hardware specs would be good for a proper server
> machine? In particular, is it necessary to use (hardware or software) 
> RAID?
> - Does anyone know any (ideally local) companies that provide off site
> backup services which will work with linux? We don't need anything that
> complex - a linux file server with ssh / sftp would be enough I think.
> - What's a good backup tool to use? It should be able to deal with the
> off site backup service we are using.
>
> The data to be backed up will be a mixture of office documents (on the
> samba server), and code (in a subversion repository).
>
> thanks,
>
> andy
>
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