[TriLUG] Linux Backup Strategies

[Brian Henning]

...so then has the 2GB single-file size smb 'bug' been fixed?  I recall many
moments of frustration surrounding a similar project, where the smb transfer
seemed to stall (read: everything ground to a halt), and I found that the
reason was that smb puked on files larger than 2 gigabytes..  I don't know
if that's still an issue, but if it is, you'll need to use a utility (or
tar's built-in ability) to segment your images into <2GB chunks.  (Be aware
that, as far as my limited knowledge goes, tar's volume-sizing ability does
not include sequential naming, so you'll have to wrap it in some other
script to rename each chunk after tar finishes with it)

Cheers,
~Brian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Aaron S. Joyner" <aaron at joyner.ws>
To: "Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list" <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Linux Backup Strategies


> dd if=/dev/hda of=/path/to/samba/share/image.dmg
>
> To dump a full-sized image of your disc to the samba share, the above
> command will do the trick.  On the other hand, if you'd prefer a more
> elegant solution (which only works over ftp) check out the g4u package.
> If space over speed is a concern, you can also compress the image like so:
>
> dd if=/dev/hda | gzip > /path/to/samba/share/image.dmg
>
> As an additional concern, if you'd like not to take up more space in the
> image than necessary, at the expense of not being able to "undelete"
> anything you may have already deleted (not such a big concern, imho) -
> you can clear out all of the once-used space on the drive, like this...
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/zerofile.tmp ; rm /zerofile.tmp
>
> If you have more than one partition, you'll need to create a zero file
> like the one above, for each partition.  A bash script to automate that
> based on /etc/fstab shouldn't be more than about 6 lines.  Keep in mind,
> that of course if you have more than one disc in the computer you'll
> need to do it for each disc, and of course you may need to adjust the
> /dev/hda references above if you're not using a single ide drive located
> as the primary master.
>
> Personally, I wouldn't do it image-style as this suggests.  I would use
> tar or dump, as it creates a more concise image, and gives you the
> flexibility of doing incrementals in the future.  Also, tar or dump will
> give you the ability to easily do individual file restore.  As another
> step in the direction of elegance, Jeremy presented on rsync backups
> using rsbackup at the May meeting.  It's yet another "better" solution,
> although depending on your purposes it may be cumbersome over smb.
>
> All of this was covered in Jeremy's and Jason's recent backup
> presentation.  The presentation itself should be searchable in the
> archives, sometime around the 2nd tuesday of May.  Hope that's a start!
:)
>
> Aaron S. Joyner
>