On 2/29/08, Kent West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I have a small server on which I need to backup the /home partition.
>
> I have a Barracuda Terastation Pro backup server sitting right next to
> it, connected via Ethernet.
>
> The problem is that the Terastation Pro only offers three connection
> methods: Windows Fileshare (Samba/smb/cifs), Apple Filesharing (AFS),
> and FTP).
>
> I came into the Linux world about the time that FTP was being deprecated
> in favor of SFTP and its variants, so I have a real skittishness of
> using plain FTP. AFS is irrelevant for me. And Samba, whereas slightly
> distasteful, would be okay, except for two problems:
>
> 1. file permissions are not preserved when doing something like rsync, and
> 2. tarballs get truncated at an apparent 2GB limit when using tar.
>
> I don't need anything fancy; just simple and reliable. I had put enough
> effort into learning tar and rsync to make them work (I thought! (is
> this 2GB limit when tarring over smb documented anywhere?)), but then I
> kept running into these show-stoppers as above. I've been very
> frustrated that over the past year of off-and-on "I'm going to get
> serious now and find a solution" I've been unable to find something
> simple(!!!) and reliable. (And by "simple", I mean "easy-to-comprehend
> in two-minutes", not "easy to implement after having mastered every
> command-line switch available".) So I've decided to finally give in and
> ask the big guns on this list.
>
> Before I spend any more effort trying to setup/learn some other system
> (Bacula, Amanda, whatever), do you folks want to give me any suggestions
> as to the best way to proceed?
>
> I want something:
>
> * simple
> * that will back up 10 - 40 GB of /home partition
> * preferably making a full backup every week or so with incrementals
> every day, tossing out old fulls/incrementals as new ones are made
> * that will work over SMB or FTP securely enough that I can stomach it
> * that preserves directory structure/permissions
> * that doesn't run into arbitrary limits like 2GB (or works around them)
> * is automatic, so once set up, I don't have to think about it
> * does not require X or web server installation/tweaking to configure
> * does not require any sort of server piece (other than perhaps an
> /etc/init.d "service" installed as part of a quick and easy "aptitude
> install ..."
> * does not require fancy back-end stuff, like MySQL
>
> I know some of you experts see a solution immediately in using tar or
> rsync, and are thinking, "Well, if Kent had just done his research he'd
> know that if he'd XXX, then YYY...", but that's just it; I'm not a
> full-time researcher of how tar and rsync and Bacula works, and thus I'm
> throwing myself on the mercy of the community for a workable solution.
>
> (I suspect there may be a lot of people like me who knows we need to be
> doing backups but can't find a 2nd-grade-easy system to accomplish the
> task.)
>
> Thanks for any suggestions/help!
>
> --
> Kent
>
>
>
> --
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>
Hey,
If all is working except for the 2GB file limit (documented or otherwise)
you can just use 'split' to break the archive into smaller parts:
eg:
`split -b 2000m backup.tar.gz backup.tar.gz.`
or pipe tar straight to it:
`tar ${your-args} | split -b 2000m - backup.tar.gz.`
You can then join them by using 'cat':
`cat backup.tar.gz.* > backup.tar.gz`
cheers,
Owen.
-- If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.
