BackupPC-users

Re: [BackupPC-users] Wierd backup problem

2010-11-12 21:12:25
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] Wierd backup problem
From: "B. Alexander" <storm16 AT gmail DOT com>
To: "General list for user discussion, questions and support" <backuppc-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:09:35 -0500
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Tyler J. Wagner <tyler AT tolaris DOT com> 
wrote:
> B,
>
> You are doing two things differently from my own config:
>
> 1. You're using lots of RsyncShareNames, rather than just / and using
> BackupFilesOnly and BackupFilesExclude. In fact, I've never used more
> than one RsyncShareName. Do you use this on your other hosts too? Aside
> from having BackupsDisable set, does it differ from any other host?

This file is pretty standard for my setup. I've sort of developed the
multiple RsyncShareNames as a result of a) excludes being rather
hit-or-miss, and b) saving disk space by not writing a bunch of files
that are in the distro (like /bin, /usr/bin, etc). I have found that
the files I back up fall into one of three categories. They are

* resources I would need to restore or clone the box (e.g.
/var/lib/dpkg, /var/lib/apt, etc)
* standard data (e.g. /opt, /home, /usr/local)
* data unique to the function of the machine (e.g. /var/www for web
servers, /var/lib/mediawiki for the wiki, etc)

I have also found that a clean install of Debian plus an apt-get
dselect-upgrade (I capture the package lists daily) takes about the
same amount of time as a full restore.

> 2. You're using sudo instead of root login. Your call. I prefer SSH keys
> with root not allowed to SSH by password.

Yeah, I have sudoers cranked down so the backuppc user can only do
rsync, tar, and other things associated with the backup. Having a
single user account that has root access to everything, especially an
unattended one, causes those hairs on the back of my neck to rise. :)

> Attached is a sample of my backup host's configuration. This is a merge
> of important global variables for clarity, and those specific to the
> backup host. My backup host gets backed up daily just like any other
> client.

As a point of comparison, here is the config for sisko, my mediawiki server:

$Conf{DumpPreUserCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x $host sudo /usr/local/sbin/dbdump';
$Conf{RsyncShareName} = [ '/lib/modules', '/home', '/etc',
'/var/backups', '/var/cache/apt', '/var/lib/apt', '/var/lib/dpkg',
'/root', '/var/log', '/usr/local', '/var/www', '/var/lib/mediawiki',
'/usr/share/mediawiki', '/var/subversion' ];

--b

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