Success story :-)

dan wrote:
> AOE is quite simple.  on ubuntu you can build a target like this

Using VMWare I was able to setup another Linux machine and got AoE 
working in less than 30min!

I added the AoE-disk/partition to the RAID1 on the backuppc-server (also 
a VM for testing purposes) and it was accepted like a 'normal' drive, 
very nice.

Thank you for everyone mentioning and teaching me more about AoE, I hope 
  I can assemble everything to a nice wiki-page.

Summing up some information from the last posts I see the following 
different solutions to backup the backuppc-server (I haven't look at 
iSCSI yet):

1) Backup using RAID1 and AoE
Setup another machine, that is located at another place and is connected 
via Gigabit LAN to the backuppc server (that means I need a 2nd NIC for 
the server). The new machine is 'offering' one of it's drives via AoE - 
this AoE-drive will become member of the RAID1.
Since the RAID will be spread across two machines that can be located at
different locations I get an additional security.

Question
========
What is the minimal hardware I can use to built this AoE server? Pentium 
III and a Gigabit-Ethernet-Card (if this is possible on older hardware)?

As Dan suggested it should be possible to create a VM (to offer AoE) and 
tie a special USB port to it that is connected to an external harddrive.
This VM can be run on another (even Windows-based) machine.
I guess its still good to add a 2nd network card to this machine (and 
the BackupPC server in order to reduce traffic on LAN, especially if 
you're also offering other services like samba on the server).

Question
========
Just to make sure: since AoE is not IP-based, does that mean that I can 
NOT connect the machine offering AoE to my server if I have something 
like a hub/switch between them?

Recovery plan:
If the backuppc-server dies, I would use the spare RAID-disk to get the 
server back online - as far as I understand I need todo some manual 
stuff in order to get the RAID bootable again, since the bootloader will 
not installed on the spare drive?!

+ easy to implement
+ no human interaction needed
+ having a full mirrored disk of the backuppc server
- need another machine (maybe also running 24/7?) - maybe not if using a 
VM, need to do further testing
- probably a 2nd network connection between these two machines to keep 
the LAN free from extra traffic
- probably less perfomance because disk activity will be transfered via 
network
- backups are not really offsite but at two different locations/machines

----------------------------

2) Backup using a RAID1 on the backuppc-server with a detachable spare-drive
In order to have a backup that can also be taken offsite, I would make 
sure to put /var/lib/backuppc on a RAID1. If I add the 3rd disk I need 
to make sure to stop BackupPC and unmount the RAID.
Then add the 3rd disk to the array and wait until the data is synced. 
Then I stop BackupPC again, unmount the drive and can put it away on a 
secure place.

Question
========
I guess I need more information than everything that is in 
/var/lib/backuppc to restore the BackupPC server. Probably /etc/backuppc 
and information the disk-layout. True?

Recovery plan:
In case I loose some of my clients AND the BackupPC server:
1. Bare metal recovery of the backupPC server with a diskimage (without 
/var/lib/BackupPC since that was stored on the RAID1)
2. Recreate the RAID with the spare disk (that has been stored offsite).
3. Since BackupPC should be running now on the new backuppc server I 
could restore (on the backuppc server and also the clients) everything 
that has been done between the last diskimage-backup and the last sync 
of the spare disk.

+ having daily/weekly offsite backups
- sounds more complicated
- need more human interaction
- backuppc has to be stopped when swapping disks
- maybe less perfomance when disks will be resynced after attaching the 
spare drive


Kind regards

- Kurt




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