[ale] Turn-key backup software

[DJ-Pfulio]

http://blog.bacula.org/
I don't use it. Found it too complex to setup.

I've been using rdiff-backup for about 7 years now, but not on Windows. For
Windows, I find a mix of quarterly images and nightly rsync push for just data
to a Linux box is the least evil. That rsync-area gets rdiff-backup'd with
versioning.
https://www.kirya.net/articles/backups-using-rdiff-backup/ - nice how-to. Of
course, you'll need to quiesce any DBs to get non-corrupted backups of those
files.  Or use LVM and a snapshot during backups.

rdiff-backup commands are very similar to rsync, but provide so much more of
what you need from a backup - versioning, efficient storage, easy restores from
1, 4, 6 weeks ago. The backup files are easy to restore without using
rdiff-backup. Nothing is in a proprietary or difficult format. Backups are
reverse-differential from the most recent backup. That means the backup from 2am
today, looks like a mirror of the file system. If I look at the backup files for
a week ago, a month ago, only a few files will be there - they are dependent on
the intermediate backups from 2am ... back to that date.

If you need encryption, the normal answer is duplicity. I hate, hate, hate the
old-school backup storage methods they use. Weekly "fulls", daily incrementals.
 rdiff-backup only has 1 "full" the first backup. Everything after that is
incremental.

Some high-risk systems get 120 days of backups. Because only the files needed to
recreate the system are saved, like an email gateway system - the entire 120
days of backups is under 100MB of storage. The system is only settings and
doesn't have **any** data. Other systems that are full of data are much larger.

For a few years, I backed up about 20 VMs using rdiff-backup.  All of those only
required 500G of storage - not worth a tape drive. I do not backup the entire
OS, just everything necessary to put the OS back to the same config, programs,
within 30-45 minutes.

Also - not all data is treated the same here.  Music and other media files that
do not change don't need versioning. A simple rsync is used for those. Home and
/etc/ directories DO need versioning - those use rdiff-backup. I'm careful to
**never** install programs outside a package manager, so by keeping a list of
installed programs (regenerated daily pre-backup), reinstalling those is trivial.

Lastly, I avoid having any data on Windows that can be avoided. Don't use
Windows for much "critical" stuff. Quicken data is about it and the data files
are in the nightly rsync to a Linux machine and backed up with versioning. Plus
the Quicken backup files are written directly to Linux storage at program
shutdown. I find life to be easier this way and the liability of Windows is
minimized.

I sleep well (and I'm a morning person), clearly. ;)


On 09/21/2015 04:00 AM, Alan Hightower wrote:
>  
> 
> I'm in need of a backup solution. 
> 
> First, most of my personal data I can't stand to lose I rsync across
> several servers at three physical locations nightly. I also manually
> push it to cloud based cold storage occasionally. But I don't currently
> version that data beyond the few source code repositories contained
> within. All of my data, both critical and non, is kept on live storage
> that is RAID 6 or better. Recently with the growing proliferation of
> cyptolocker variants, DoS attacks and penetration probes on my machines,
> etc, I have realized the work involved in replacing the non-critical
> data is just as significant and the risk of malicious damage just as
> real. 
> 
> I just picked up a free LTO-4 Ultium SAS drive from an enterprise
> upgrade and am looking to start keeping routine full, diff, and
> incremental off-line tape copies just in case. I have two Linux boxes
> (one rsync'd to the other nightly) and a Windows 7 workstation I need to
> natively back-up. And I am willing to pay a few hundred dollars for a
> commercial solution if it is pretty much turn-key and well supported
> when a disaster happens at 4am. Does anyone have any recommendations on
> FOSS or budget commercial software that would support both client OSs, a
> 2 node install, fairly easy to use, and not ultra-finicky about
> distributions? (I'm running FC21 atm). 
> 
> Thanks in advance, 
> 
> -Alan H.