Topic: Restore disk and offsite backup

[groyk]

Hi SME users

Today I am using Ahsay backup software on my SME server. This works fine but I think I could save some $ if I did the backup between 2 locations myself.

But witch contrib would be the best choice for making backup DAR2 or Affa?

Further I would like to make a total recover disk of the system as there are MANY custom installs.

My backup network would be like this
SME Server <-> Internet <-> SME Server (Or LAN HDD)

I have following requirements
1. I want to be able to restore single files (browse backup)
2. I want to have ex. 100 days backup history.
3. Should run by cronjob every night
4. I want to add all MySQL tables, FreePBX config ect. (Full backup)

I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

Simon

[janet]

groyk

Affa does what you want for local or remote backups, & can also backup to USB (locally or remotely{via SME}).
DAR2 is for local backups only to workstation or USB.

When you say "I would like to make a total recover disk", this really implies a "bare metal clone" which would include all installed contribs. None of the popular SME backup solutions do this, but they do backup all data, configuration & mysql dbs, so that a full restore can be done & then you reinstall any add on contribs.

Affa can restore single files, but it is done using a Linux command line. It is easy to do & examples are provided in the wiki article.
You can specify how many days, weeks, months, or years of backups are retained. This is limited purely by the size of your backup data & the size of the hard disk (or connected USB drive) on the remote SME Affa bacup server.
Affa provides you with a list of rpm differences between the server being backed up and the backup server, so you can easily see what contribs need to be re-installed in the event that a major server rebuild is required.

You should read the Contrib & Howto wiki articles, Affa is well documented there as are a number of other backup solutions, there is even a Backup Category.
http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Backup
Please do some reading, the Contrib & Howto links are at top of this forum.

Assuming you have a lot of data on your server, eg 250Gb, it will be better speedwise to do the first full Affa backup to the backup server while it is connected to the LAN. Then move the backup server offsite for the daily incremental backups. A full backup may take several days or more to complete across an Internet connection.

[groyk]

Hi Mary

Thank you for the insight. I have read about affa which seems to be the most advanced backup solution for SME. I think I will go for it.

Thanks again.