First of all thanks for your extended and structured replay. There are some options I haven't considered although I searched various options.
For now all I want is a local backup for my home workstation until I set a NFS or something similar on my home. That would be a better option. The reason for the backup is that I want to be able to return fast to a previous working system in case I mess my system. PS. As far as my answer goes.(OpenBSD as Desktop) I just tried to be helpful. I should say that I don't feel that I insult someone with my answer. As far as I can understand it contribution to the ports is on voluntary base. Saying that some packages on port are not up to date is a reality and it isn't anybody s fault. On 06/14/17 03:50, Predrag Punosevac wrote: > Somebody hiding behind a pseudonym G wrote: > >> >> >> Most tutorials suggest not to backup tmp and var etc. I decided to >> backup the whole var. >> > > You were the last person I expected to ask a question on this mailing > list after those "expert advises" you gave people on OpenBSD desktop in > which you insulted 2 dozen port maintainer claiming that their ports are > not up to date. > > >> What do you suggest? I though rsnapshot was ok? >> > > OK for what? The first question is do you really need a backup and what > are you trying to backup? None of us can help you to answer that > question but we can help you to understand different concepts. > > > In my book there are three different things which people refer to as > backup. > > 1. Journaling > 2. Genuine Backup > 3. Archiving > > > You can think of Journal as a file system level version control system. > HAMMER of DragonFly BSD is the only file system which supports > fine-grained journaling via history command which can be very finly > tuned. ZFS is another file syste/volume manager which supports > journaling via ZFS snapshots. You can read this post of mine > > https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=144340431520709&w=2 > > for a very naive comparison of the two. > > OpenBSD will hopefully one day have HAMMER 2 but in the mean time your > only option is > > sysutils/glastree > > or you can become an expert on mtree I suppose. You could also by a MAC > when Apple finishes their Apple file system. Journals are useful if you > are dealing with bunch of users who should be really using a version > control systems for whatever they are editing but they are too lazy or > too dumb to do so. > > > Now comes a genuine backup. A genuine backup is something which you > expect to access on the regular basis with moderate seeking speed. > rsynapshot is an example of a rsync Perl wrapper written for a genuine > backup. Apple time machine is also just a wrapper around rsync. I would > strongly suggest you read the following thread > > https://www.reddit.com/user/rsyncnet/?sort=hot > > In particular pay attention to the post which starts as > > " I have some expertise in this area[1] so I would like to provide some > additional information for future readers of this thread - specifically > on rsync snapshots, rsnapshot, duplicity, attic and borg. > > The simplest thing to do is to rsync from one system to another. Very > simple, but the problem is it's just a "dumb mirror" - there is no > history, no versions in the past (snapshots in time) and every day you > do your rsync, you risk clobbering old data that you won't realize you > need until tomorrow. " > > Very informative. The only thing I could add is that the guy is not > familiar with HAMMER because otherwise he would notice that we went full > circle. rsync paired with HAMMER is no longer "dumb mirror". If the > target is HAMMER you can do something like > > SHELL=/bin/sh > PATH=/etc:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin > # Order of crontab fields > # minute hour mday month wday command > 0 7 * * * /usr/local/bin/rsync -aW > --inplace --delete /home/predrag rsync://predrag@192.168.3.2:873/ftp > > and you will have full history. That is how I backup my desktop to my > DragonFly file server. > > Some other backup tools are dump/restore, Bacula (make sure you backup > the data base because you will not be able to restore), Amanda, HAMMER > mirror stream, ZFS rsnapshot. The last one which I use at work is > particularly robust in data center settings. > > Now that is not the full story of backup. The above is typically related > to backup of data. Sometimes one wants to backup server configuration > files in order to quickly restore the functionality of the server. > OpenBSD way of backing up server configuration files is altroot > > https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#altroot > > OpenBSD comes with a wonderful tool called softraid > > http://man.openbsd.org/softraid.4 > > which can be used to fully encrypt your laptop but also for RAID 1 > installation of OpenBSD. Root on RAID 1 gives you a protection but it is > not a backup. Typically I backup such OpenBSD server to an external USB > device via altroot. People have noticed that sometimes it is useful to > backup /var as well. You can use similar approach with /var which I do. > Don't forget to dump your databases before you do /altvar backup. > > > Finally most home users will really need Archiving. Archiving is > a technique of "permanently" storing data in the case of unlikly loss of > original data. There are many ways to do it. Backup type is time-tested > way to do it. You can use sysutils/duplicity to archive your encrypted > data to Amazon Glacer. Colin Percival will do that for you using the > crypto function scrypt he decovered and this little tool > > sysutils/tarsnap > > His prices are reasonable. Other formaly inexpensive methoods of > archiving involve burning DVDs and taking them to a remote storage. You > can find the following userful > > sysutils/shunt > > Anyhow, hopefully the above will give you enough to think about without > overburden you with concepts like incremental, differential, and full > backup. > > > >> ps. On linux i was using backintime (which uses rsync) but it seems its >> no longer on the packages. >> > > Probably because OpenBSD crew has very aggressive approach in removing > obsolite, poorly written, unstable, and poor security track record > software from its ports three. You really think that we are incapable of > porting tripwire to OpenBSD? Think again! > > Now you can see who actually have obsolite and older version of the > software. It is Linux and I am not talking about Red Hat. I am talking > about Ubuntu. > > Best, > Predrag > > > >> On 06/13/17 19:05, Paolo Aglialoro wrote: >>> +1 >>> >>> Have a full snapshot of your system, otherwise restore will be a >> nightmare. >>> Do it with another tool, rsnapshot is mostly useful for data. >>> >>> Il 13 giu 2017 11:05 AM, "Mark Carroll" <m...@ixod.org> ha scritto: >>> >>>> On 13 Jun 2017, G. wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hello! >>>>> Im trying to take daily and weekly backups of my system rsnapshot. >>>> (snip) >>>>> Im not sure if there is anything in var that i should consider >> backup >>>>> like sysmerge or syspatch. >>>> (snip) >>>> >>>> I have various stuff across different machines that is worth backing >> up >>>> in var/ like directories for nsd, unbound, www, etc. It all depends >> what >>>> you're using your machine for thus what you've put in those. >>>> >>>> Storage these days is cheap: my usual approach is to back up >> everything >>>> except stuff that I have hunted down via "du" and suchlike as being >>>> actually rather large and decided I can certainly live without. >> Better >>>> to back up a bit too much rather than too little. (Note that things >> like >>>> logs are rather compressible so even "du" may badly overstate them.) >>>> >>>> -- Mark >>>> >>>> >
