[SGVLUG] Cool Tools -- any volunteers? (or suggestions)

[David Lawyer]

> On 10/4/05, Emerson, Tom <Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com> wrote:
> > subject pretty much says it -- do we have a volunteer this month
> > to talk about some nifty tool or utility that they use to manage
> > or maintain their system?  How about an interesting game or other
> > amusement?

On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 11:26:53AM -0700, Claude Felizardo wrote:
> I'd like to see either a short or long presentation on backup
> solutions such as mondo and things similar.  I've got a linux file
> server and a couple of windoze desktops.  i don't have a good backup
> system.  i use a variant of mike rubel's rsync backup (it's called
> rsnapshot i think) but that's just for bailing me out of a config
> error discovered days or weeks later.   i replicate stuff like the
> kids pictures and stuff on each computer.  occasionally, i burn a
> dvd and give a copy to the grandparents but that's about it.   I'd
> be interested in seeing a demonstration of mondo or equiv.

There should be a good HOWTO on backups but there isn't.  Could sgvlug
create one?  I think I've mentioned before how I do backups but I'll
repeat it.  One main point is that if your free Linux system software
gets destroyed, you should be able to download it again or reinstall
from CD.  But you may need to backup configuration files that you've
modified for customizing your system and applications.

Also, some of what you've written may be on the Internet, possibly in
mailing list archives.  So there's not much need to back that up
unless it's in another format on your HD.  Also, if you copy
interesting stuff from the Internet, it can be bookmarked so that you
can fetch it again if you lose the copy.

I suppose if you've got high capacity storage devices, you can just
backup everything so my example of only backing up what is necessary
will be overly complex for many.  But it seems to be fairly simple.

Here what I do:
1. Backup my home directory to another HD in my PC which is run daily 
   by cron (actually anacron) using cpbk.  Since my PC is usually off,
   this backup happens when I first turn on the PC during the day
   (anacron will run the backup at the next available opportunity if
   your PC is down at the time specified for backup)

2. Backup specified important files and directories to my website.  To
   do this I just put symbolic links of what I want stored on my
   website into my website master tree on my PC.  Then whenever I
   update my website (using sitecopy) it copies all changes of this
   "master tree" into my website.

The website backup is much smaller than my backup to HD.  It includes
configuration files that I've modified and my address book (bookmarks)
for the Internet.  If my HD crashes I've got an old version of Linux
installed on my backup HD.  So I just switch cables, boot from this HD
and I'm back in business.  Except that I'll then have to go on the
Internet and update Linux overnight using apt-get with a slow modem.
When updating Linux, I might want to use the configuration files
stored on my website since some of them are newer than what's on my
backup.  

I guess I should sometime copy the entire contents of my main HD to
the backup HD so as to have a copy of the latest software there.  But 
by doing this I might erase something I need, since the backup HD not
only stores the latest copies of my files, but also keeps copies of
files that were deleted or modified on my main HD.

I just now checked the Debian package list to see what backup packages
exist.  I didn't have time to find them all and read all the
descriptions.  But I found 17 packages so there might be 30 all told.
So could sgvlug cover all 30 packages at one meeting :-).  There's
also a HOWTO on backups but it isn't too useful:  It's got it's own
scripts for backup (Perl and Bash) and emphasizes scripts for creating
partitions on a new HD and creating file systems on them.  One can of
course do this manually.  It fails to compare the large number of
backup programs.  So another HOWTO is needed which compares all the
backup programs and include concepts for backup that involves no
backup programs such as using your website or archives on the
Internet.  An introduction is needed discussing the various types of
media for use in backups and various backup strategies.

How does Linux compare with say Windows XP for backups?  I just
checked the Internet and I read that it will only take 10 min/week to
do your backups on Win XP.  My system takes 0 min/week (but took some
effort to set it up).  It also said that the backup system Windows
provides can't write to a CD (I guess there is other software that
could do this but it may not be free).  So Linux isn't bad, but how is
one to choose from 30 possibilities when there is no comparison
document?  Well, one method is to just search for "backup" in the list
of packages and select the first backup program that sounds
reasonable.  You probably wouldn't select the "floppybackup" package.

			David Lawyer