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Jeffrey J. Kosowsky wrote:
> Jim Leonard wrote at about 20:20:59 -0500 on Monday, August 31, 2009:
> > Jeffrey J. Kosowsky wrote:
> > > Is it self-evident that a BackupPC tree is difficult to
> > > copy/move/resize if not on a dedicated filesystem?
> >
> > What is a "dedicated filesystem"? How does it differ from any other
> > filesystem?
>
> I mean a filesystem used just for a BackupPC topdir vs. a filesystem
> that may contain data and/or code for multiple applications. Based
> upon the nearly weekly postings on this group, it seems that many
> people (myself included) initially set up their BackupPC topdir on a
> filesystem containing mixed data and without the advantage of things
> like LVM or ZFS since they don't realize in advance how hard it is to
> copy/move/resize the topdir area due to the large number of
> hard-links. It seems to me that new users should be strongly advised
> to create topdir on a separate ("dedicated") filesystem on top of LVM,
> ZFS, RAID, etc. to maximize flexibility. Alternatively, we can
> continue to address this same issue every week ;)
BTW, my "simple" solution to this apparently "major" problem was as follows:
1) Start using backuppc with a single FS (/) formatted with reiserfs (my
preference).
2) Backuppc grows too big for the FS, and I want to add RAID1 backup of
the system
3) Purchase and install 2 x 1TB HDD's and configure with a single
partition and use MD for RAID1
4) Boot from CD/USB live linux system, and use dd to copy the old
/dev/sda to /dev/md0
5) Adjust the /etc/fstab on the root FS to mount /dev/md0 onto
/var/lib/backuppc
6) mount /dev/md0 somewhere
7) mv var/lib/backuppc backuppc
8) rm -rf all directories other than backuppc
9) mv backuppc/* .
10) rmdir backuppc
11) umount md0
12) adjust the partition size
13) adjust the filesystem size
14) reboot and enjoy the newly expanded pool size
I really don't see why people think this is so difficult... Sure, there
are lots of hardlinks, but block level copies are... simple. Sure, the
new drive is bigger, but increasing partition sizes and filesystem sizes
is simple. No "dangerous" operations, nothing technically hard or
difficult... just simple standard unix tools to solve a problem by
breaking it down into simple steps.
I don't use LVM, in fact I don't really know how to use it. It might
have made my life simpler if I had used it, but since I understand MD
much more than I understand LVM, I find it more reliable for me.
PS, I've done that process a couple of times now on different backuppc
installations and never had a problem. Also, it completes quite quickly.
However, I don't think this has any bearing on the discussion at hand on
how to backup your backuppc server, nor on "problems with hardlink based
backups". Upgrading systems is "allowed" to be a little harder because
you don't do it very often...
Regards,
Adam
- --
Adam Goryachev
Website Managers
www.websitemanagers.com.au
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