Topic: Using SME as part of a backup system...

[snakedog]

...an RV dealership I do desktop support for (and some networking) recently upgraded their server (though they kept Windows 2000 SBS).  The owner of the biz had me research doing online backups of the new server, but he balked at the price, especially when it seems no one guarantees those.  I suggested it may be possible, using Linux (specifically SME), to setup up the old server, which does have enough hdd space (for now) as a secondary backup system on the network (but in a different building), and that there would be no licensing issues so typical of Windows (remind me to tell the story about the network engineer who hesitated to even turn on the old server for even a few minutes to recover a handful of ISA settings because of licensing!).  Currently the tape backups are done nightly (though not always successful).  My thinking is to do backups across the network to the old server set up to run SME.  My questions are:

1) What software would I install on Windows 2000 SBS
to run the backup to the SME and...

2) How often would I run such a backup?

3) Would there be some kind of alternating schedule that would work out best between the tapes and the SME?

Perhaps two backups seem redundant, but like so many businesses, their data is everything now, and my philosophy is you can't have enough backups.  Also, I run an old NT Server in my office and tentatively setup an SME to that domain.  Seems to run good, no issues with mapping.

Thanks!

p.s.--I did not do the server upgrade.

[del]

Hi Snakedog,
Could this be what you are looking for: http://www.tech-geeks.org/contrib/loveless/SMEServer/howtos/rsync_backup/SME_BackupServer.html
Backs up multiple servers (Windows, Linux or Novell)to a single SME server on the network. I hope this helps.
Regards,
Del

[MSmith]

With some fiddling, NTBACKUP can be a very reliable file-based backup system.  I use a nifty little freeware program called NTDATE (check this link:  http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=23468) to set the date into an environment variable, then make a backup to a filename incorporating that variable.  

For example, let's say I have set up my SME Server with an ibay that's to be the target of my backups.  My Windows server sees that as drive letter Q:.  Let's further say that everything I want to back up is on my local drive letter D:.  My batch file might look something like this:

c:
cd \batch
ntdate -f %%Y-%%m-%%d > today.txt
for /F "tokens=*" %%i in (today.txt) do set datestamp=%%i
ntbackup backup D:\ /j "Full Backup %datestamp%" /f "Q:\Fullback%datestamp%.bkf" /M normal

Run today, that would make a full backup of everything on D: to a file named "Fullback2005-01-05.bkf" on the Q: drive.

You can refine this further by using a command-line-capable ZIP utility to compress the .bkf file, as they are usually highly compressible.  Try 7-Zip.  You can also use the wonderful BLAT to send yourself notifications of backup status by checking for the existence of today's backup file, or simply listing the contents of Q: to a text file and sending that to yourself.

I hope that'll get you started.  There are other methods available that would pull from the SME side rather than push from the Windows side (Bacula, anyone?  ) but this will work.

[MSmith]

Here it is, without the offending parenthesis:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=23468

[p-jones]

A solution I know works is to install the Server version of Acronis on the server (not cheap but what price does your client put on the value of the data for his/her business ??)

Do a full backup weekly and an incremental backup in between. Scheduled via the Acronis Scheduler

Pipe this data to an iBAY on an SME Box. (It could be any box in reality but if its SME, it one less M$ licence)

Acronis has 2 nice features suited to this task
(1) Images can be made on the fly without rebooting
(2) An image can be mounted as a drive and restoration is very quick by drag and drop. When mounting, you can go to any increment and the data will be valid for that day.

If you end up in deep brown smelly stuff, a complete image can be restored to reinstate a partition/drive just like Symantec Ghost. This can be done via the LAN and the Boot CD

Acronis has some shortfalls too, but so does Ghost and other similiar products so at the end of the day, its all about balancing risk. Remember, nothing is 100% (fool-proof).

As stated at the outset, I KNOW this approach works - well)


Rgds
Peter

[wingman]

snakedog,
You won't need to install anything, nor will you need to use scripts. Just use the built in Backup program of SBS, and set the backup destination to an ibay on your sme box. Works perfectly, I am doing it....unless you are trying to backup SQL databases, that is.