Backup Central

I'm just getting started setting up bppc and I want to experiment with
putting the data store on a zfs filesystem. (A solaris host running
Openindiana with zfs file systems)

I'm installing bppc on Debian (wheezy) and thought I'd mount just the
storage pool on an nfs share that resides on the solaris host.

Maybe that isn't the best way... I wondered if there is anyone here
doing something similar (using zfs for the storage pool).

On debian many of the things that would be done by user during an
install from sources are done for you. I ended up with the main files
at /var/lib/backuppc. which contains a whole pile of some kind of data
files. I see them in places like cpool/0/0/0.

pwd
/var/lib/backuppc

ls
cpool log pc pool trash

ls cpool/0/0/0
00082b8bf118ab8238eab15debddfdd7 000f017d12997dfc67d8e55eab8

file cpool/0/0/0/*
cpool/0/0/0/00082b8bf118ab8238eab15debddfdd7: data
cpool/0/0/0/000f017d12997dfc67d8e55eab8af059: data

I haven't finished the docs yet, maybe it tell what this stuff
is... but for purposes of this post I wondered if it would be wisest
to let the directories and files under /var/lib/backuppc also reside
on the nfs shared zfs filesystem.

Which directory really holds the backups... `pc' or `pool'.

Another thing to consider when thinking of using a zfs host is whether
to let zfs do the compression. One can set compression on in zfs, but
I suspect it would not be as heavy a compression as backuppc might do.

However, on zfs, it is done transparently and is not really a big
resource user.

Any thoughts on this subject would be very welcome.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
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On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Harry Putnam <reader < at > newsguy.com> wrote:

I haven't finished the docs yet, maybe it tell what this stuff
is... but for purposes of this post I wondered if it would be wisest
to let the directories and files under /var/lib/backuppc also reside
on the nfs shared zfs filesystem.

Which directory really holds the backups... `pc' or `pool'.

Both - there are hardlinks between the slightly mangled names in the
trees under pc and the names that are hashes of the content in pool
(or cpool if compression is used). They have to be in the same
filesystem.

--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell < at > gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users < at > lists.sourceforge.net
List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell < at > gmail.com> writes:

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Harry Putnam <reader < at > newsguy.com> wrote:

I haven't finished the docs yet, maybe it tell what this stuff
is... but for purposes of this post I wondered if it would be wisest
to let the directories and files under /var/lib/backuppc also reside
on the nfs shared zfs filesystem.

Which directory really holds the backups... `pc' or `pool'.

Both - there are hardlinks between the slightly mangled names in the
trees under pc and the names that are hashes of the content in pool
(or cpool if compression is used). They have to be in the same
filesystem.

Thanks for the prompt reply and input.

So if I put /var/lib/backuppc (and everything under it) on an nfs share
that resides on a solaris machine with zfs... it should work alright?


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users < at > lists.sourceforge.net
List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 11:38 PM, Harry Putnam <reader < at > newsguy.com> wrote:

So if I put /var/lib/backuppc (and everything under it) on an nfs share
that resides on a solaris machine with zfs... it should work alright?

Yes, perhaps with a bit of performance loss compared to local storage.

--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell < at > gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users < at > lists.sourceforge.net
List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

On Thu, 17 Nov 2011, Harry Putnam wrote:

On debian many of the things that would be done by user during an
install from sources are done for you. I ended up with the main files
at /var/lib/backuppc. which contains a whole pile of some kind of data
files. I see them in places like cpool/0/0/0.

pwd
/var/lib/backuppc

ls
cpool log pc pool trash

ls cpool/0/0/0
00082b8bf118ab8238eab15debddfdd7 000f017d12997dfc67d8e55eab8

Debian's default conf file for demonstration backs up only /etc on
localhost, with the idea that you're meant to change it. But it works
like that out of the box as soon as you apt-get install backuppc, even if
you haven't configured anything at all yet.

Check perhaps
$Conf{RsyncShareName} in /etc/backuppc/config.pl

'course, best to do this via the web interface, so it picks the right
version of that variable for whatever server you're looking at.

However, on zfs, it is done transparently and is not really a big
resource user.

Any thoughts on this subject would be very welcome.

Yeah, if I had a ZFS filesystem (or btrfs), I would do much the same
(having not tried it yet, I don't know that I'd *succeed*). backuppc is
really quite slow (3MB/s on average on my machines) at backing up a
machine or reconstrucing a given path from a tall tree of incrementals.
Not needing to do incrementals (see the patches on this list for rsync
usage) might be a big win. I'm sure ZFS is a little quicker than that
given that it's not done in perl.

--
Tim Connors

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users < at > lists.sourceforge.net
List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/