Re: [BackupPC-users] Howto backup BackupPC running on a RAID1 with mdadm

Definitely do a 3 device raid with 2 always on devices and a 3rd swappable.

As far as an automated script to sync the drives, I say DONT DO IT! your best bet is to make a script that adds the drive to the mirror set, waits for it to sync completely, and then removes it from the set. then you can fire that off manually.

*ALTERNATIVE*
if you get an external drive with a button on it that is used to launch a quick backup or something, you should be able to get to that button as it would be a usb device on the system and you could write a script that watches that device for a certain code(the one for the button being pressed) as well as makes sure it is the only copy of the script running and have the run on the hotplug of the drive, and killed on unplug. you could also do the same thing with a button on a serial port or on usb or something or even a keyboard combination on the console(Ctrl+Alt+Meta+B)

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Holger Parplies <wbppc AT parplies DOT de> wrote:

Hi,

Adam Goryachev wrote on 2008-07-16 12:00:23 +1000 [Re: [BackupPC-users] Howto backup BackupPC running on a RAID1 with mdadm for offline-storage]:
> [...]

> Holger Parplies wrote:
> > Are you sure you want that Windoze-type-oh-no-feeling when you plug a USB
> > stick with valuable data into the computer and it automatically fills it
> > with the first few GBs of your BackupPC pool? :) Not sure if sfdisk will
> > allow the partition table to exceed the device size though ...
>
> You should be able to recognise the UUID or similar of the drive, to
> ensure that it is the drive you want to deal with (or one of the
> multiple drives you want to deal with).

yes, and I appreciate the simplicity of simply plugging in the drive and
everything happening automatically. *But* we are speaking of administrative
operations here, not a fancy end-user interface. There's always the chance
you want to plug in the (correct, recognized) drive for a different reason,
such as checking its SMART status, copying the image, accessing a previous
version of your BackupPC pool, reading the serial number or because you got
drives confused and think it's your transportable photo collection. Chances
are, you shouldn't be doing that on the BackupPC server. Chances are, you
should be aware of what will happen. But still: extensive, potentially
destructive operations happening automatically without a chance of user
interaction is something that belongs in the world of Windoze. Linux is
becoming more like that fast enough already, so I won't let this chance pass
to argument against it :-).

Of course there's also the chance of you simply plugging the drive in at an
inappropriate moment, when you wouldn't want the sync to happen. You might
notice it when logging in to call the script to start the sync, but you won't
log in just to check, if you went to the trouble of automating the sync in the
first place, will you?

Just because you *can* automate something, that doesn't necessarily mean it's
a good idea to do it. Then again, under some circumstances it may well be.

Regards,
Holger

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