On 31 Jan 2009, at 06:36, Predrag Punosevac wrote:
Dear All,
I am seeking advice about the backup strategies and possible use
of CVS to accomplish this task.
I happen to use 4-5 different computer on the daily basis for my work.
I use my laptop, desktop, and a file server at work as well as my
personal
desktop and my wife's laptop at home.
It is of paramount importance for me that my files are in sync on all
5 computers
for two reasons. I want to start working always with the latest and
most up to date version of files regardless of the computer which I
am using.
Secondly, if a HDD dies on one or even three-four computers at the
same moment
of time I will still have backup copy to recover the work.
Up until now I have used the combination of tar, rarely dd, and my
home brown scripts
to accomplish above task. I would always start work by running the
script which would
pull up the tar files either from the file server of USB drive and
untar them on my computer.
After I finish work I would run the script to tar specific directory
I was working on and push
them back to file server and a USB drive.
However it did happen to me that I forgot to run the script once or
twice in the past which
cause me great deal of frustration. Suddenly, I would have to
different versions of the
same file at two different computers and maybe the third older version
on my file server.
It also happen to me in the bast that I modify the files and I
realized that modification
sucked but I could not recover specific older version of particular
file.
I do periodically burn DVDs with entire home directory, date it and
keep it on the shelf.
Are there any advantages of using CVS over my present method or I am
just hallucinating.
It looks to me that CVS could help me utilize pull+push strategy for
backing up the files but
would give me advantage over the tar and dd by allowing me incremental
updates as well as
keeping the past snapshots of my work.
I have seen a thread about 2-3 months ago on misc in which there was a
similar question
by a OpenBSD user who wanted to keep his /etc on his firewall machines
up to date as
well as back up configuration files in the case of the disaster by
CVS.
I am open for any suggestions but I do have a strong preference for
the tools from the base
of the system. I noticed couple ports with poor man tools for
accomplishing above tasks.
Thanks,
Predrag
For a good backup solution for multiple machines I don't think you can
go wrong with amanda. www.amanda.org . I use this to backup 50Tb per
week!
If you want to use a version control system then I'd look at
subversion. It's far superior to CVS but a little less diehard unix.
CVS has been around for far longer and is sometimes inbuilt into
systems but I'd give subversion ago.
For my home web server I bought a DLT8000 tape drive off ebay for #20
and bought a 2nd one just incase this fails. I use dump to backup to
tape weekly.
Khalid
