[ale] Backup's

[Jim Kinney]

Sure they can back up easily, but can they restore?

I removed a gazillion backup apps from windows systems because when it was
time, the restore was unsuitable for use.

Bacula  is a beast but it is rock solid, supports loads of tape hardware
(libraries with LTO3, clusters, etc) and can backup and restore Linux,
windows, Mac, Solaris, anything. The winders crowd has a gui client tool to
let them see what has been done.  There is a bare-iron recovery method
(saved my A$$ a few times!) as well as the ability to backup over ssl
encrypted connection and even encrypt files BEFORE backup so backup
operators have no access to data. Backups can be timed or client initiated.
The manual is totally outstanding (there is nothing like it anywhere else in
open source land!) and is updated and released with each version release.
It is really enterprise class stuff yet once the setup is done, it's sit
back and watch the email reports for problems (Yes. It's sends a detailed
report for the success or failure of each backup and restore job. Example
below).

Amanda is a popular tool that can also do multiple platforms. It defaults to
a local drive storage and does not require a tape system (bacula can do that
as well).

There are many tools like Mondo and Mindi and a bazillion others. Freshmeat
lists 334 projects in system::archiving::backup (most are crap :(

Example email from a successful Bacula run (note: there is pre-run script
that the backup calls to do a full pgdump call):

25-May 00:27 test-dir: Start Backup JobId 3194,
Job=BackupCatalog.2008-05-24_23.10.00
25-May 00:28 test-dir: Bacula 1.38.3 (04Jan06): 25-May-2008 00:28:18
  JobId:                  3194
  Job:                    BackupCatalog.2008-05-24_23.10.00
  Backup Level:           Full
  Client:                 "database"
i686-redhat-linux-gnu,redhat,(Heidelberg)
  FileSet:                "Catalog" 2006-01-12 23:10:02
  Pool:                   "Default"
  Storage:                "PacketLoader"
  Scheduled time:         24-May-2008 23:10:00
  Start time:             25-May-2008 00:12:13
  End time:               25-May-2008 00:28:18
  Priority:               11
  FD Files Written:       1
  SD Files Written:       1
  FD Bytes Written:       192,544,215
  SD Bytes Written:       192,544,324
  Rate:                   199.5 KB/s
  Software Compression:   None
  Volume name(s):         LNS01005
  Volume Session Id:      395
  Volume Session Time:    1204898758
  Last Volume Bytes:      73,924,152,958
  Non-fatal FD errors:    0
  SD Errors:              0
  FD termination status:  OK
  SD termination status:  OK
  Termination:            Backup OK

25-May 00:28 test-dir: Begin pruning Jobs.
25-May 00:28 test-dir: No Jobs found to prune.
25-May 00:28 test-dir: Begin pruning Files.
25-May 00:28 test-dir: No Files found to prune.
25-May 00:28 test-dir: End auto prune.

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 5:10 PM, Craig Button <craigb.rn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok one area that Windows and even MAC seem to have a heads up over linux
> is easy to use backup software.  I"ve got a desktop system using Hardy
> that I'd like to set for regular backups.  I'd like to be able to back
> up my Evolution data, my documents of course and the biggy for me is my
> Amarok files.
>
> I'm looking for the best backup solution.  Ideally I'd like a solution
> that allows me to restore my data easily when I try new distro's.
>
> Thanks all.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>



-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
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