* prad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2006-06-12 11:54]:
> i've gone through the threads:
>
> Recommendations for an OpenBSD-based Backup Solution
> remote data backup
>
> and am contemplating the ideas as they apply to my rather simple setup - 2
> webservers (one does email as well). not too much changes on them and not a
> lot of stuff on them either (under 5G combined including OpenBSD).
>
> what i've done in the past is just scp the etc and a few other directories
> that contain data with the intention of reinstalling OpenBSD and putting
> those directories back in (if disaster strikes).
>
> is this too simplistic and inefficient a solution?
> should i be thinking of incremental backups say with dump?
> does it make any sense to rsync the entire server drive?
It depends. decide how long you could be down for which
situations, and test it. (I.e. are you comfortable recovering
your machiens that way).
Take your backed up /etc and data files, install a new box and see
how long it takes you to get the world back. If that time is
reasonable, you've got a pretty good solution, and I'd stick with it.
The *VAST* majority of my systems here rely on exactly that for the
system config, or frequently they are "clones of each other so I have
to lose all 10 to not be able to rebuild one trivially.
OTOH, if you need to do stuff like recover data files user
stupidity, etc, you may want to have some incrementals to
"find out what state that file was in a week ago". we do
incremental type backups for this stuff.
So it really depends on the nature of your setup. What kinds of
disasters [1] are you protecting yourself from. and how long can
you be down when one of them happens. Include how long it'll
take you to say, get new hardware, if that's what you'll need to
do. No point in having a 30 minute backup solution and forgetting
you need a week to get gear, find another colo, make bail after
messily murdering the subordinate who wrecked the machine, etc.
-Bob
[1] my list, in order, looks something like this, decide what you
care about and how long it can take. (Note, saying "I don't care"
at some levels of this is fine...)
- Luser Fuckup
- Sysadmin Fuckup
- Owned Box
- Dead Disk
- Dead other part of box
- Fire or Water in Machine room
- 767 to the building
- Tactical nuclear device
- Strategic thermonuclear device
