Topic: Daily backup of single folder - to tape?

[spook]

I use my server to store my digital fotos, about 6,5 gb of them. I (read: my wife) would like them to be as safe as absolutely possible. I will soon be moving my server to new hardware (I have another thread about that), and a tape drive will be installed in the new server.

My Questions:
1) How do I set it up so that it makes a nightly incremental backup of my "Pictures" folder to tape? And maybe a weekly "full" backup...

2) What Contribs do I need - if any?

3) Can I set it up so that I get an email status notification? As in "Nightly backup ok, 55% space left on tape" or something like that.

Any help and/or comments appreciated.

Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors, Im Danish, and typing in the snow is really really hard.

[raem]

spook

> I (read: my wife) would like them to be as safe as absolutely possible.

The first thing to do is get a 2nd drive and create a software RAID1 array (mirrored drives). If one drive fails (& they do) the other drive keeps running with all your data intact.

> I will soon be moving my server to new hardware (I have another
> thread about that), and a tape drive will be installed in the new server.

Arkeia allowed incremental tape backups, search for that. There may be others.
The default tape backup in sme does a full backup every night.

Alternatively (& probably a lot cheaper) use disk drives attached to a workstation or the servers USB socket and use backup-dar contrib to backup to disk.
There is a contrib e-smithbackup-dar (or similarly named) that does incremental backups. Search the forums as both are current recent topics.

[spook]

I already have the tapedrive, and I will try to get my dirty little hands on another 250 gig drive.

The reason for bothering with the tape is that tapes can easily be stored in a fireproof safe, thus saving the pics in case the house burns down

...or I can just grab a tape on my way out of the burning house, knowing that my precious pictures are safe.

I will do some digging for Akeia, expect more questions!

My god Ray, do you know EVERYTHING?  

[spook]

I will do some digging for Akeia, expect more questions!

And here it is: Ehm... is there a contrib somewhere for Arkeia on SME 7.0? Can´t seem to find anything less than a year old...  

[spook]

Small update: Some trading around with a fellow geek has left me with two  identical 200GB harddrives for the new server  

I'm mounting the tapedrive as we speak. Now all I need is to find a nice and quick way to back up 50gigs from the 250gb drive, as this drive was part of the deal.

Where do I go look for interesting contribs? Maybe there's something else than Arkeia that fits the bill...

[Tib]

spook

You may want to have a look at this ... I use it at work atm till something better comes along

http://www.arkeia.com/products/arkeiasmartbackup/index.php

You also may want to check this out ... looks promissing ... haven't tried to backup to tape yet, but network backup works great.

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=34187.0

Regards,

Tib

[spook]

Maybe this is just me being slow... But  where can I download contribs for it? I can't seem to find any

Have been looking around for Dar rpm's but all I've found are dead links

[wjhobbs]

How to Install dar2

This is the process I have used:

Ensure that there is a ‘software’ ibay to hold SME downloaded software.
Download the needed files into the directory ‘dar2’ in the ‘software’ ibay

Code: [Select]

# cd /home/e-smith/files/ibays/software/files/dar2
# wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs//dmay/smeserver/7.x/dar-2.3.2-1.i386.rpm
# wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs//dmay/smeserver/7.x/perl-CGI-FormMagick-0.92-08.noarch.rpm
# wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs//dmay/smeserver/7.x/smeserver-dar2-0.0.1-0dmay.noarch.rpm
Go to that directory:

Code: [Select]

# cd /home/e-smith/files/ibays/software/files/dar2
Install the packages

Code: [Select]

# yum localinstall  dar-2.3.2-1.i386.rpm perl-CGI-FormMagick-0.92-08.noarch.rpm smeserver-dar2-0.0.1-0dmay.noarch.rpm
and perform the

Code: [Select]

signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot

Create a mountpoint and setup the fstab entry

Then go to the dar2 menu item in the server-manager to set up the backup job(s).

Hope this helps.

John

[spook]

I'll be trying that right away!

[Tib]

spook

If your after the incremental ver then you want this one ...

http://bugs.contribs.org/attachment.cgi?id=608

Look at my earlier post and go to the link to read up about it.

Regards,

Tib

[spook]

spook

If your after the incremental ver then you want this one ...

http://bugs.contribs.org/attachment.cgi?id=608

Look at my earlier post and go to the link to read up about it.

Regards,

Tib

Hmm... it's installed, but I don't really get it - it added som features to the standard backup options, but only something about backup to workstation and local USB-drive   Tape backup options remain the same - full backup of entire disk to tape.

On another note - where do I read up on fstab? I've only used it once before, about a year ago
 

[wjhobbs]

On another note - where do I read up on fstab? I've only used it once before, about a year ago
 

I presume this is in reference to my earlier how-to post. 'backup2' was the predecessor to 'dar2' and they function in a similar manner.

You can look here http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=33146.0 for my description of how I set up my fstab entry to support it.

Note: I use a label rather than a device specification for the mount in this example.

Hope this helps.

John

[spook]

It helps! But how do I label the tape drive? It's not like I can plug it into another computer and format and label it... unfortuneatly.  

[wjhobbs]

Spook,

Both of the dar backup facilities (the dar2 contrib and the beta enhancement to the SME base backup mechanism) are intended to put the backup onto either a directly attached disk (e.g., a usb drive) or to a network share (e.g., a network workstation). They are not designed to work with a tape.

Ray's recommendation that you use a USB drive rather than tape is a good one.

If tape is your only option, I think you need to install a backup package that can deal with your tape drive.

John

[spook]

Aw crap.

The tape is a deliberate choice. It does a weekly full backup of my pictures, and I change the tape. The tape it just filled goes to the safe deposit box. So if the house burns down, I'll still have all my pictures. Everything can be replaced (thats why we have insurance) except pictures. Imagine having no pictures of your children when they were young?

I'll look for something else that Dar2 then - I'm open for suggestions!