Re: [BackupPC-users] Off-site backup strategies

[Nils B. (Lemonbit) <ni...@le...>]

Kevin DeGraaf wrote:

> We have an on-site BackupPC server (2.1.2pl1) backing up 31 hosts,  
> with
> a total pool size of 1.8 TB.
>
> We're going to deploy an off-site backup server in a colocation
> facility.  The colo has a great deal of bandwidth available, but our
> office is stuck with a T1 connection (1.5 Mbps symmetric).
>
> Possible configurations:
>
>   1. Install BackupPC on the remote server, and do a full backup in  
> the
> office prior to deploying it to the colo.  From then on, perform only
> incremental backups.

If you're using rsync, why not do fulls anymore? Rsync fulls don't use  
much more bandwidth than incrementals. It's mostly extra CPU power and  
I/O needed to read the files on both ends, but rsync fulls don't  
transfer all files (unlike tar and smb fulls).

>   2. Use the remote server to hold a copy of the on-site BackupPC
> server's file pool.  The pool would be rsync'ed on-site initially and
> then rsync'ed remotely from then on.

This doesn't scale very well because of the large number of hard  
links. There have been a lot of threads on this topic, but the  
conclusion is always: don't do it.

>   3. Just rsync the local servers, individually, to the remote server,
> without involving BackupPC at all.  This would mean not having prior
> versions available, but it seems like the simplest solution from a
> disaster-recovery point of view.

You could take a look at rdiff-backup: http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/ 
  But BackupPC using rsync might just work as well once you have taken  
the initial backup locally.

> On a related note, are there any plans to have BackupPC display a
> progress indicator of some kind during backups and restores?  Perhaps
> this has been added since 2.1.2pl1, but I'm too lazy to read the
> changelogs at the moment.  :-)
>
> The lack of a progress meter isn't such a big deal on a local gigabit
> LAN, but over a slow T1 link, I'd really like to be able to see what's
> going on.  Even being able to tail an rsync log would be something.

There is no progress indicator, but you could check the Xferlogs.

Nils Breunese.