BackupPC-users

Re: [BackupPC-users] BackupPC Pool synchronization?

2013-03-07 09:36:10
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] BackupPC Pool synchronization?
From: Mark Campbell <mcampbell AT emediatrade DOT com>
To: "General list for user discussion, questions and support" <backuppc-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net>
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 07:34:45 -0700
Holgar,

My thinking at this point is that I'll leave the pooling be--it may require 
some extra CPU cycles & RAM from time to time, but my understanding of the zfs 
dedup & compress features are that they should be transparent to BackupPC, so 
while pooling in BackupPC won't avail much, it probably wouldn't hurt anything 
either.

Thanks,

--Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Holger Parplies [mailto:wbppc AT parplies DOT de] 
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 9:16 AM
To: General list for user discussion, questions and support
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] BackupPC Pool synchronization?

Hi,

Les Mikesell wrote on 2013-03-06 13:42:17 -0600 [Re: [BackupPC-users] BackupPC 
Pool synchronization?]:
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 12:16 PM, Mark Campbell 
> <mcampbell AT emediatrade DOT com> wrote:
> > Interesting.  Well then I guess the answer is to not muck with pooling (as 
> > redundant as it is, at least it theoretically shouldn't hurt anything), 
> > disable compression, and enable dedup & compression on ZFS.
> 
> Yes, I'd do that and try out the mirroring and send/receive features.
> If you are sure everything else is good you can probably find the part 
> in the code that makes the links and remove it.

It's a bit more than one "part in the code". *New pool entries* are created by 
BackupPC_link, which would then be essentially unnecessary. That part is simple 
enough to turn off. But there's really a rather complex strategy to link to 
*existing pool entries*. In fact, without pooling there is not much point in 
using the Perl rsync implementation, for instance (well, maybe the attrib 
files, but then again, maybe we could get rid of them as well, if we don't use 
pooling). It really sounds like a major redesign of BackupPC if you want to 
gain all the benefits you can. Sort of like halfway to 4.0 :).
Basically, you end up with just the BackupPC scheduler, rsync (or tar or just 
about anything you can put into a command line) for transport, and ZFS for 
storage. Personally, I'd probably get rid of the attrib files (leaving plain 
file system snapshots easily accessible with all known tools and subject to 
kernel permission checking) and the whole web interface ;-). Most others will 
want to be able to browse backups through the web interface, which probably 
entails keeping attrib files (and having all files be owned by the backuppc 
user, just like the current situation). Then again, 'fakeroot' emulates 
root-type file system semantics through a preloaded library. Maybe this idea 
could be adapted for BackupPC to use stock tools for transport and get attrib 
files (and backuppc file ownership) just the same.

ZFS is an interesting topic these days. It's probably best to gain some 
BackupPC community experience with ZFS first, before contemplating changing 
BackupPC to take the most advantage. Even with BackupPC pooling in place, 
significant gains seem possible.

Regards,
Holger

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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester  
Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the  
endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to 
tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. 
http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev
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