[ale] Looking for backup solution.

[Ronald K. Mellema]

This reply is rsync specific so based on requirement 3 it may be
inappropriate. However, I am using a program to do incremental backups
with rsync that I have not seen discussed here before and I would like
to suggest it. I tried most of the scripted front ends to rsync but was
dissatisfied until I found a new binary on SourceForge called RVM (Rsync
Vault Manager). It creates date stamped directories with hard links to
the original files and results in very small incremental backups. It was
installed in January on a SUSE box and has run by cron every night since
without a single hitch. I strongly recommend RVM. I have not tried rsync
on Windows so I cannot comment on that usage.

It is interesting to note that RVM went stable 1.0 last November and on
SourceForge there is not one bug report or patch, yet it is actively
downloaded. It is extremely stable.

Ron Mellema
ron at exithere.com

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Jim
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:02 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: [ale] Looking for backup solution.

I tried bacula because it had everything I needed, however I couldn't 
get it to work the first time and then when I tried later it seemed to 
work after screwing with it too long.  Now all of a sudden it started 
failing. 

So I'm going to trash it and try something else. 

What I liked about bacula were the following features.

* it does either full backups or incremental ones.
* it allows me to include/exclude directories/files.
* it runs from a single machine and dumps files from multiple systems, 
including Windows

Rsync does the second, but unless you write some sort of script to 
schedule the target in different places, it  won't solve the first and 
as far as I know it doesn't do the third for windows.  I know you can 
run rsync on windows, but you can't schedule it from Linux unless you 
install some sort of ssh server on the windows box.  I'd rather have a 
complete package that runs everwhere if possible.

I'm dumping to a dedicated 200 Gb drive on one of my Linux boxes.  I 
dont have a tape drive.
 
Dump is pretty quick, but it doesn't let me exclude the crap I really 
don't want to be bothered with among other limitations.

So does anyone know of any reasonable solutions? Something that'll last 
more than a couple of months?  (bacula)

Thanks,
Jim.
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