[Lancaster] file server with backups - advice wanted

[Martyn Welch]

I set up a back up system whilst still at Lancs Uni, based on this
website:

http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

Basically:

I had a server used as a file server - it was this that was backed up. It
was NFS and Samba mountable, the samba was tied into the domain controller
so that users we authenticated through that.

A second machine used rsync as described in the above link to do rolling
backups of the home folders. These were dated and (from memory) backups we
kept for the last 7 days, then one backup a week was kept for a few months
then monthly backups for a year. The process above describes how this can
be achieved without (hopefully) needing N-times the size of the home
folders.

The directories of backups were then mounted back to the file server as
read-only so that users could access there own historical home directories.

At the time I couldn't find anything else so simple and efficient.

Hope that helps,

Martyn

On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:28:21 +0000, andy baxter
<andy at earthsong.free-online.co.uk> wrote:
> 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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>>
> 
> 
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