[ale] Backup software
Greg Clifton
gccfof5 at gmail.com
Wed Jun 30 18:42:22 EDT 2010
Scott,
I got a question: When are you going to present on said subject(s) for ALE?
MG,
GC
On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:07 PM, scott <scott at sboss.net> wrote:
> This is something I could write a (short) book on. But here goes the
> shorter and more centralized on Brandon's particular server needs.
>
> option 1) hack through the issues with Mondo and use it to create .ISOs
> of system. You can give it a nas share (like NFS) and mondo will create
> the .ISOs there then you can burn them to DVDs, CDs, etc later.
> pros: will have CDs (or DVDs) to boot off of and restore the system to
> that point in time configuration. these can be sent to your DR (disaster
> recovery) site for someone else to use in case Atlanta gets hit by a
> hurricane, tornado, earthquake (we are on a fault line, didnt you
> know?), terrorist attack, etc...
> cons: time to set it up. it is going to do the whole system and you
> dont care about the data. newer version might let you skip certain
> filesystems (to reduce the time & number of CDs).
>
> option 2) hook up an external usb disk and copy the files that you want
> over to it. Then if the server goes belly up (and they never do that
> </sarcasm>) you can plug the usb drive into another server and recover
> the files.
> pros: cheap to setup and easy to automate.
> cons: what happens if the server is struck by lightning or electrical
> surge and takes the server and the external drive out? what happens
> when the disk is failing? etc. what happens if the building is leveled
> (or flooded with water)?
>
> option 3) use rsync (over ssh) and an "include these files" file. Rsync
> can be automated. the target where you are copying it to can be in the
> same building/data center, across the country, or wherever. you just
> need network connectivity. You could do 2 rsyncs every time. one to a
> local server (same building/data center) and one remote (for when stuff
> goes really bad). rsync doesnt care.
> pros: can be automated. can do mulitple destinations. can be near or
> far replciations. restores are easy to do.
> cons: have to maintain the "files to include" list. although if you
> wanted to, you could automate that too. rsync is not the fastest tool
> on the planet to do replications. see my note about how rsync works below.
>
>
> rsync and how it works notes (this is high level not the nuts-n-bolts):
> rsync goes through these phases:
> * both sides compiles a list of files (and directories since they are
> actually files).
> * rsync compares the two lists to determine what needs to be replicated,
> what needs to be deleted, etc.
> *(only if using the delete-before option) deletes the "to be deleted"
> files on the target
> * copies the files from source to target
> * (only if NOT using the delete-before option - this is the default
> option for delete) deletes the "to be deleted" files on the target.
>
> as you get more and more files (quantity of files/directories not sizes
> here), the longer the first two steps take (compiling lists/comparing
> lists). And sometimes it takes longer to do that then the actual
> copying of data.
>
> to do a restore of the data, you reverse the order of the source and
> target inte rsync line and now you are restoring.
>
> backups:
> rsync <whole bunch of option> <source> <target>
>
> restores:
> rsync <whole bunch of options> <target> <source> (using the stuff from
> above).
> technically that is not correct. it is always the <source> then
> <target> but for a restore the <target> is now your <source> and vice
> versa.
>
> my suggestion to you Brandon for this box (since you dont care about
> data, just the config files) I would do option 3. Unless you want to
> setup and play with Mondo. If this is a learning experience so you can
> deploy Mondo onto other systems then that is a different story. If you
> do option 3, I would automate/cronjob once a week to dump "rpm -qa" to a
> text file that you rsync. that way you know that a current list of all
> rpms.
>
> I hopefully answered some questions without going on and on and on too
> much. I can do a hour long preso on the various options including the
> differences in DR, HA, CA, and DA... (Disaster Recovery, High
> Availability, Continuous Availability, and Disaster Avoidance respectfully)
>
> let me know if you have other questions..
> scott
>
> Brandon Wood wrote:
> > This stems from having to reinstall the system after a drive crashed
> > (non-raid, no backup of the OS). At this point there are a couple of
> > 500gb drives in a RAID 1 setup but I want to make sure I don't have to
> > start from scratch should the worst happen.
> >
> > I'm running CentOS 5.5 on a Proliant ML350 G6. The two 500gb drives are
> > setup with software raid in linux currently while the large data drives
> > are using the SmartArray raid hardware. I only mention this as mondo had
> > some complaints about the raid setup.
> >
> > I doubt the OS will be messed with much more beyond this point and the
> > scripts that do the data processing are backed up on their own. The data
> > produced is sent off to another server so there isn't much that changes
> > as time goes on so the snapshot may cover me. But I am interested in
> > hearing your suggestions for backups / disaster recovery.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 6:47 PM, scott <scott at sboss.net
> > <mailto:scott at sboss.net>> wrote:
> >
> > are you looking for "backups"? "disaster recovery"? or "system
> image"?
> >
> > mondo works well for recovering a system from a point in time
> snapshot
> > of the system (when you did the mondo image create - cant remember
> the
> > terminology right now).
> >
> > mondo is not a backup and recovery tool.
> >
> > mondo is not for disaster recovery (unless you just want to recovery
> > from that one time point in time snapshot).
> >
> > it has been a little while since I used mondo but it has worked well
> for
> > me in the past. target HD doesnt have to be the same size. It can
> be
> > larger or just larger than what you have backed up.
> >
> > for instance:
> > current HD = 1Tb drive. But only using 300gig
> >
> > recovery system doesnt have to have a 1TB drive. a 320gig drive from
> > newegg would be fine. If you are recovering to a non-same-sized
> drive,
> > you have to go into the system at recovery time (the one you boot off
> > of) and change the drive specs before the actual recovery.
> >
> > scott
> >
> >
> > Brandon Wood wrote:
> > > All,
> > > I am looking to create an image of a live system and want to
> know
> > > what software is suggested for this purpose. I've done some
> searching
> > > and came across 'mondo' and am trying it out now.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any better suggestions or success stories they
> > want to
> > > share?
> > >
> > > -Woody
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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