[Server-devel] easy backup solution for Linux?

Bryan Berry bryan at olenepal.org
Tue Mar 18 23:24:12 EDT 2008


> I would like to minimize, if not eliminate, such local customizations...
> 
> This is still an open technical argument.   Comments ?

Our XS setup will probably differ significantly from that in Birmingham
or Uruguay since we will not have Squid or Dansguardian running on the
XS. We intend for our XS installations to be roughly identical in terms
of configuration but our XS installations will likely be very different
from other countries.

"One-size" does not fit all when it comes to the XS, in my opinion.
Also, different countries will use different hardware. In Nepal, it is
difficult for us to order a particular brand of server and configuration
due to customs issues. We would love to use a custom hardware solution
like the one Wad has in mind, however we can't use it until it is ready
*and* falls into our price range, including customs duties. 

I am quite wary of investing in a custom hardware platform because of
the time and energy it will require, in addition to the economy of
scale. It made sense to this for the XO in part because we need a lot of
them for deployments. The # of XS's will be tiny in comparison.

I would much rather that energy go into the software stack for the XS.
My two cents.


> OS + config info + system state (ejabberd database, user database &  
> info) <=> school server

This could all be backed up to a livecd or usb key w/ Mondo archive,
very easily. Or,

OS + Config Info => LiveCD w/ Mondo

system state + Library => rsync or rdiffbackup

I like Mondo because it makes it very easy to backup to CD or DVD. These
media are very cheap in the developing world and you can store them
offline, much prefer them to having a big hard drive that can get
shocked in an electrical surge.

When does Martin start full-time? I thought he started on MOnday

On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 22:28 -0400, John Watlington wrote:
> On Mar 18, 2008, at 1:33 PM, Aaron Huslage wrote:
> 
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm new to this party, but it seems to me that restoring the server  
> > and restoring the data on it are two different problems. I've done  
> > lots of backup work in my career, and I never back up the OS  
> > because it is easily retrieved in a hurry.
> 
> My argument exactly.
> 
> > In the case of XS, it would seem particularly easy to have a couple  
> > of USB keys with the OS ready to install and a simple script to  
> > grab the configuration files and data off of a server on the  
> > Internet or another USB key (Mondo may do this, I'm not sure). This  
> > would reduce both bandwidth and storage requirements significantly  
> > since you won't have redundant data stored all over the place.
> 
> A colleague's counter-argument is that an incremental backup system  
> can be
> seeded with the production build, to minimize redundant data  
> transfer.  It also
> catches any local customizations not captured in the configuration info.
> 
> I would like to minimize, if not eliminate, such local customizations...
> 
> This is still an open technical argument.   Comments ?
> 
> > On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Bryan Berry <bryan at olenepal.org>  
> > wrote:
> > thanks Greg,
> >
> > I think rsync is the way to go to back up the data but we need a nice
> > tool to totally restore the boot image. To do that we are using Mondo
> > because it is super easy, however I doubt it supports restoring the  
> > boot
> > image to totally different hardware. We may later consider LiveBackup
> > for that reason
> 
> One of my big disappointments with Fedora LiveCD is that after  
> installing
> an image, it is specific to that hardware.   Once first boot happens,  
> further
> customization of the image (to network hardware) happens.
> 
> This is a point in favor of:
> OS + config info + system state (ejabberd database, user database &  
> info) <=> school server
> 
> This also allows enables the case of restoring:
> [new] OS + [new] config info + old system state => new school server
> 
> We are really close to supporting a consise declaration of config info,
> I was waiting for Martin to start full time before doing so.
> 
> Cheers,
> wad
> 
> 
> 
> 
-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Systems Engineer
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org



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