Backup Central

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Hi all,

If I set the remote directory to / and then just use either an include or
exclude list to narrow down what I want backed up, is this the correct way?

- --
Kind Regards,

Gavin Henry.
Managing Director.

T +44 (0) 1467 624141
M +44 (0) 7930 323266
F +44 (0) 1224 742001
E ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com

Open Source. Open Solutions.

http://www.suretecsystems.com/
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On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:18:50 +0100
Gavin Henry <ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com> wrote:

If I set the remote directory to / and then just use either an include or
exclude list to narrow down what I want backed up, is this the correct
way?

[Hi Gavin]. It depends what you want to achieve. Personally, I do not back
up installed software (other than the /usr/local tree) because, in the
event of a complete system loss, I would rebuild the system from the
distribution before restoring any data. I generally back up the following
(notes in parentheses):

/home (user data)
/etc (configuration info)
/usr/local (locally installed non-distribution software)
/var/www (local websites)
/var/lib/samba (if you're using tdb backend, the passwords are stored here)

Before the backup starts, I put the following in a directory which will be
backed up:

/usr/src/linux/.config (kernel configuration file)
MySQL/PostgreSQL dump (database backup)
output of "fdisk -l" for each disk (partition table)

Finally, I generate a list of all installed packages and put it in one
of the directories to be backed up, which makes rebuilding a system from
scratch much easier.

I drive the whole backup from a command file, which also generates status
files which indicate to remote management programs the state of the backup
on each system.

If you want more info, feel free to contact me.

Keith

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Small business computer support: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
Linux consultancy: http://www.TheLinuxConsultancy.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith Edmunds said:
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:18:50 +0100
Gavin Henry <ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com> wrote:

If I set the remote directory to / and then just use either an include
or
exclude list to narrow down what I want backed up, is this the correct
way?

[Hi Gavin]. It depends what you want to achieve.

Hi,

I want to do something similar, but in the examples it says that you can
only list a local directory and a remote one. So I thought if I make the
remote one / and then just exclude or include what I feel necessary, then
that should work.

Am I reading things incorrectly?

--
Kind Regards,

Gavin Henry.
Managing Director.

T +44 (0) 1467 624141
M +44 (0) 7930 323266
F +44 (0) 1224 742001
E ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com

Open Source. Open Solutions.

http://www.suretecsystems.com/

On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:25:48 +0100 (BST)
"Gavin Henry" <ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com> wrote:

I want to do something similar, but in the examples it says that you can
only list a local directory and a remote one. So I thought if I make the
remote one / and then just exclude or include what I feel necessary, then
that should work.

Am I reading things incorrectly?

Not necessarily. You can either do "push" backups, where you initiate
rdiff-backup from the machine which is to be backed up, or "pull" backups,
where you initiate rdiff-backup from the machine receiving the backup. For
a variety of reasons, which I can explain if you want, I initiate
rdiff-backup from the machine containing the data to be backed up. Let's
call them "local-server" and "backup-server", the latter being the backup
repository. The command file I alluded to earlier generates commands to
run on local-server such as:

rdiff-backup /etc backup-server::/path/to/local-server's-repository/etc

The command file generates multiple lines similar to above to backup
each directory tree I want backed up. Yes, you could specify "/" and use
--exclude-list, but I find my method is easier to understand (for me,
anyway).

Does that make it clearer?

Keith

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Small business computer support: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
Linux consultancy: http://www.TheLinuxConsultancy.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith Edmunds said:
On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:25:48 +0100 (BST)
"Gavin Henry" <ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com> wrote:

I want to do something similar, but in the examples it says that you can
only list a local directory and a remote one. So I thought if I make the
remote one / and then just exclude or include what I feel necessary,
then
that should work.

Am I reading things incorrectly?

Not necessarily. You can either do "push" backups, where you initiate
rdiff-backup from the machine which is to be backed up, or "pull" backups,
where you initiate rdiff-backup from the machine receiving the backup. For
a variety of reasons, which I can explain if you want, I initiate
rdiff-backup from the machine containing the data to be backed up. Let's
call them "local-server" and "backup-server", the latter being the backup
repository. The command file I alluded to earlier generates commands to
run on local-server such as:

rdiff-backup /etc backup-server::/path/to/local-server's-repository/etc

The command file generates multiple lines similar to above to backup
each directory tree I want backed up. Yes, you could specify "/" and use
--exclude-list, but I find my method is easier to understand (for me,
anyway).

Does that make it clearer?

Yes and no. I don't understand why you run the rdiff commands on the
machine to be backed up.

What I have is:

http://www.perl.me.uk/downloads/rdiff-script.html

All I want is to change:

http://www.perl.me.uk/downloads/rdiff-script.html#line26

to something like / and add in an $option3 after:

http://www.perl.me.uk/downloads/rdiff-script.html#line23

for the include/exclude list, instead of having lots of seperate rdiff
commands.

Possible?


Keith

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Small business computer support: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
Linux consultancy: http://www.TheLinuxConsultancy.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------


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Gavin Henry wrote:
for the include/exclude list, instead of having lots of seperate rdiff
commands.

Possible?


without actually reading your scripts, perhaps the -globbing-filelist
options are what you want. I use them to great effect to build a
matching filelist, then just backup /

dave

On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:47:14 +0100 (BST)
"Gavin Henry" <ghenry < at > suretecsystems.com> wrote:

Yes and no. I don't understand why you run the rdiff commands on the
machine to be backed up.

Because I want to run the backup as root (to avoid permission problems),
but I don't want to allow remote root logins (for security). Yes, there are
convoluted ways to do this with the backup initiated by the backup server,
but the easiest way is to start the backups on the client machine. I've
tried a number of ways of doing this, and this works well. You're welcome
to disagree, of course.

All I want is to change:

http://www.perl.me.uk/downloads/rdiff-script.html#line26

to something like / and add in an $option3 after:

http://www.perl.me.uk/downloads/rdiff-script.html#line23

for the include/exclude list, instead of having lots of seperate rdiff
commands.

Possible?

Absolutely.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Small business computer support: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
Linux consultancy: http://www.TheLinuxConsultancy.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

David Kempe said:
Gavin Henry wrote:
for the include/exclude list, instead of having lots of seperate rdiff
commands.

Possible?


without actually reading your scripts, perhaps the -globbing-filelist
options are what you want. I use them to great effect to build a
matching filelist, then just backup /

All my script doesn is wirte a logfile and e-mail and success or failure
notice, as well as calling rdiff-backup.

Reading the man page only shows --exclude-globbing-filelist and
--include-globbing-filelist, which puts me back to the same place, using
include and exclude.

I could just use a RE to pick what I want.

dave