On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 02:46:10PM +0100, Marco Fretz wrote:
> ok =) right. i had some problems that me have the same solution. i need
> a backup solution with the following features:
>
> - smallest network traffic
> - smallest load on remote machines
> - preserved file permissions
> - only small configuration on remote machines
> - restoring data until 7 days ago (7 day generation)
> - root login on remote machines is disabled
>
> is there any solution? =)
>
> i think there have to be a way like this: rdiff-backup over ssh and run
> the remote rdiff-backup with sudo. but how?
There is no solution that satisfies all. For instance, a rsync-based
solution (such as rdiff-backup) typically uses much more CPU (and, to a
lesser extent, memory) than a simpler solution based on tar or dump. On
the other hand, it does use less bandwidth.
On the third hand, though, if you want to write your backups (only) to
an external medium, 'rolling' backups become very problematic. The
'dump' scheme was invented at a time when backups were written to tape,
and is quite good for that purpose.
Additionally, dump-based solutions on most systems can get away with
only having 'operator' priviliges, which is still a lot, but less than
'root'. Rsync will require full root priviliges (via sudo or otherwise)
or a lot of configuration.
As to just running the remote side with sudo, that shouldn't be too
hard. A quick look at the documentation did not suggest this was
possible by setting a configuration flag, but one should be able to
change the source code to work as desired.
Then again, as I proposed upthread, a public key for root which will
only run a single command is probably a better solution.
Joachim
