[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Evergreen backup

[Carl T. Miller]

Duimovich, George wrote:
> I'm looking to use rsnapshot [http://www.rsnapshot.org/] or other
> recommended tool to establish backup to a remote NAS. Anybody want to
> recommend anything else for Ubuntu and / or is there a preferred tool
> recommended for users/customers?

I am not yet running Evergreen, however I do back up a
lot of Linux servers on a variety of distributions.
Various backup programs are available that have various
features.  Select one or more depending on what you want
to do.

Backuppc is excellent at using disk space wisely to provide
the ability to see various versions of files over time and
to easily restore files.

MondoRescue creates files that will allow a bare metal
recovery from either DVD or network storage devices.

Bacula is complex to set up, but will provide the ability
to do a bare metal recovery as well replace individual
files.  It can write to tape.

Rsnapshot appears to be similar to backuppc, although
I believe backuppc has more features.

Knoppix dvds can be used to make a literal copy of the
hard drive for bare metal recovery.  The drawback is that
it requires the host to be unavailable during the backup.

My suggestion?  Use either backuppc or rsnapshot for the
ability to restore files.  Configure it to archive your
database immediately before the backup and run it auto-
matically letting you know whenever there is a failure.
Also use MondoRescue, bacula, scripts with Knoppix or another
method to provide bare metal recovery.  Even if you use an
automated method, be sure to archive a copy after every
system upgrade or major configuration change.

Obviously you want to test whichever methods you use and
document them well.

c