Re: [BackupPC-users] Looking at BackupPC notation clarification

Hi, Ted

I'll answer some in the middle of your mail, but there's some things I would like to see first:

1- With backuppc you may say I want to backup everything from that client ("/" or "C:\ and D:\, etc...") or instead say I want to backup just this, and this, but not that- the concept is "shares".

So you may have two (or more) backuppc servers if that helps your questions. One backup this, the other backs up that and the clients.

backuppc needs very little maintenance, so I think that's an option.

2- backuppc is very little demanding of the machine. Any machine with apache will do it. That besides the pool thing :)

3- About pool. It can be on the server disk(s), RAID1 would be a good idea, or any kind of external mounted partition. A NFS share, for example. But you'll be limited by the speed and bandwidth of your LAN. backups will travel twice, I think.

4- I understood you want to archive to DVD and free space.
Archive is somehow direct. To delete older backups (not automaticaly, not by schedule, that is) you may use a script that was shared in this mailing list (I can send it to you)

Luis Paulo:

Yes, I agree that I next need to deal with the Clients issue. But I
still have a concern having BackupPC plus the Server plus the Pool all
on the same machine 192.168.1.16 having the name "Ubuntu".

Maybe it would better help you help me if I explained a few things.

May application involves the collection of web pages associated with the
news. I am talking about thousands of web pages every week. Once a web
page (or web tree) is collected it is static forever -- that is to say
it's contents and appearance will never change. However, I and others
will need to access these web pages by means of a browser. This next
part is very important. I cannot leave these collections of web pages
on dynamic media for several reasons.

Reason #1 is the collection process itself. I use Firefox with add-ons
which makes it possible to collect and export these collections. So
that there is an operation occurring someplace under root "/" and
accumulates these collections (my data) while still located under "/"
for Linux and C:\... for Windows MS. (BTW I am trying to phase out all
MS Windows machines to Linux machines) but the process of change is slow
and there are still MS OS XP machines involved). The main thing I am
here trying to say is that there is data build up right inside the
processing scheme and if I don't regularly export and move this data out
to another machine or disk then "/" would be full of data and eventually
all operations would fail not just BackupPC. I know this is true
because I watch the build up of data and then the change to more free
space once it is exported and moved. Right now BackupPC seems to be
focused on the Ubuntu Linux OS which is OKAY because that needs to be
regularly backed up even though there are only small changes.

Backuppc is super to backup similar data from diferent clients. It can see files are the same, store it only once and uses hardlinks. Don't agree with focused on backing up OS, but not entirely false.

Reason #2 is the BackupPC Pool which also manages the backed up files. I
have tried to keep "/" clear of excessive data build up, that is I check
to make sure that it does not build up and cause problems.

BUT as soon as I go to add clients from other machines I'm going to be
in a lot of trouble and I won't be able to control the build up of data
in the BackupPC Pool and also handle everything else on 192.168.1.16.
THEREFORE is it possible to MOVE the backup POOL to another machine
specifically set up for that purpose.

Answered, I think. I'll move the server and pool to another machine.

Reason #3 is sort of the same problem. I need to be able to keep data
(NOT OS data but NEWS data in the form of web pages) on both DVD as well
as magnetic (drives hd, sd, etc.) media. This means that there is a
duplication occuring. Unfortunately for me I have experienced failure
of hard drives and external usb drives which resulted in major data loss
and even entire machines. So now I am paranoid. I lost weeks if not
months of data.

You have the pool(s), and archive the share(s) with what you want to DVD
I have some experience on DVD failure, regret to say.

Archive, AFAIK, is a compressed file, store it on DVD or move it to another media (or both)

Delete the backups after with a script, or wait for the automatic delete after you delete the files from disk.

What these 3 reasons come down to is that I have two kinds of data. One
kind is the operating system and the data it generates as it executes
various processes. The other kind of data is tons of web pages being
generated and then exported and then moved as well as copies on DVD.
This last category means there is a constant build up of NEW data.

a) use diferent shares
b) use 2 servers

The only incremental data would (I think) be that associated with the
Operating System as changes occur and temporary data changes get created
and then moved out of "/".

Since all machines are likely sooner or later (just like the magnetic
media within them) to die at the worst possible time I need to be able
to set up something along side of BackupPC (not in place of but in
addition to) in order to replace one machine with a new machine. I have
been working on a GhostLinux "G4L" type of approach. But I want to get
BackupPC up and running first in order to deal with the CLIENTS. After
that I guess you cannot help me because BackuPC is not associated with
"G4L" -- right?

Ghost is fine, I used to use it as fast recovery, creating the images on disk.
Just don't ghost the pool, I guess - make pool a partition, so you may exclude it from ghost.

Hope all this makes sense.

I certainly appreciate your help so far. This stuff was just a bit new
for me to feel confident about.

Thanks -- Ted Hilts
Looking forward to your response, Ted

Hope haven't said anything stupid. Anyone, please correct me.
Didn't answer all your questions, probably, but hope will get to it :)

Finnaly, backuppc may not be the perfect tool to backup a bunch of web pages from diferent sites.
But it will do the job.

Luis

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev

_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
List:    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki:    http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/