On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 03:51:05PM -0400, Guy wrote:
> We are currently using amanda 2.4.5p1 to backup a mix of Unix + Linux hosts.
> Now, we need to backup HUGE (100 Gb) subversion repositories that reside on
> a Windows XP box.
>
> >From what I have read, the SMB client seems flaky.
>
> I only have ONE big directory to backup from windows. My amanda tape server
> is a Linux Box.
>
> Did anyone try to use the Windows Services For Unix from micro$oft ?
>
> We plan to NFS export the directory and mount it on the amanda tape server
> and back it up from there.
>
> Are we heading for a disater ?
Specific shares is probably a better use of amanda for windows backup
than attempting to do total system backups.
>
> What are our other alternatives ?
>
Five come to mind.
1. use some windows based software to actually do the backups
into windows files. Then use one of the other 4 techniques to
send them to amanda for taping. Depending on the software, you
may avoid some of the "sharing violation" type problems.
Recovery would be a two step process. Get the image from amanda,
restore using the windows software
2. install cygwin and run a real amanda client on the windows system
3a,b,c the other 3 techinques are basically similar, indirectly access
the windows share from a direct amanda client. To the amanda server,
the windows share is on the direct client.
The three are samba access to the smb shares, an NFS server (from SFU
or other places) on the windows system, and a commercial software called
sharity that is kinda a cross between NFS and smb access.
Way back when I happened to have tried all four (2 and 3a-c) on the
same Windows 2K box. Cygwin, as a direct amanda client, was just starting
to work well, SFU was at the 3.0 stage and was not free, and the Sharity
I used was a beta-no time limit preview with the limitation that it could
go no deeper than 3 directory levels.
All four worked and each had some problems. SFU and Cygwin each required
the installation and administration of additional software on the W2K box.
Not a big problem for doing just one box, but it would be for 25 boxes.
Both were (at the time, I don't know about now) pains to setup.
Sharity worked (within its 3 level limitation) and seemed just like
an NFS automount except the remote host appeared under /CIFS instead
of under /net.
That same windows box, now running XP, is being backed up with samba.
Still lots of those #@$%@# windows sharing violations etc. But given
your situation you may have few/none of these. It would be by far the
easiest to try given that you already have a linux box running the
amanda server and that box probably can access the subversion share.
I think as little as one addtional line each in amandahosts, amandapass
and disklist.
I never tried SFU 3.5 although I have about 3 free copies sitting on
my shelf. For unix tools on a windows box I get the msys offshoot
of cygwin. But the 3.0 SFU version of the NFS server worked pretty
well for me. Less so the NFS client. In fact for a while I had a
really heterogenous environment, Solaris, linux, HP-UX, Tru-64, and
Windows. Rather than bother compiling all those clients, I just set
up NFS for all of them, mounted to the amanda server and did the backup
that way.
M$ hosted a pretty good SFU forum/mailing list. It seemed that some
of the developers participated.
If it is still like the 3.0 version, be prepared to uninstall and start
over again. I seem to recall that some decisions made during install
were difficult to change after installation.
I'd seriously consider SFUs NFS server. AND I'd seriously consider
not backing up your subversion as a single DLE. By splitting you
will get several 10-20GB level 0 dumps rather than 100GB full dumps.
--
Jon H. LaBadie jon AT jgcomp DOT com
JG Computing
4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159
Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
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