Newbie wanting opinions on backup options
 

Hello again,
I now have two ubuntu servers up and running as file servers at the moment, and so the next step in my plan is to figure out some sort of backup program / solution that I can use so that I don't lose my data.

I've heard mention of Clonezilla, and I have looked at it, but it seems to only clone full drives, and for a first time load / install, not a bad program. However, I am wanting to know / learn more about incremental backups, or what others are using as well. Keeping in mind I am still learning all about this linux stuff, is there a fairly easy to use backup program that I can use?

If it helps, I presently have about 200gb - 300gb of data so far that needs to be backed up, with the OS's of both systems on 80gb drives each, plus 2 more 80gb, a 120gb drive, and a 500 gb drive available for data. I'm thinking that I might partition off about 300 gb of the 500gb drive to be the backup partition, but wanting to get some opinions on how to proceed.

Thank you all for your help and time in answering my questions.

Mikey

Hi Dakoris73, Clonezilla is an amazing program, and i prefer it because it is wicked fast. I am not 100% sure on what you mean by 'incremental'. Whether you mean partitions of your hard drive, or just back up some data stored on your partitions.
If you mean the former, then Clonezilla is capable of that.

I recommend rsync; it's capable of doing incremental backups with the -a argument. Most Linux distros that I use include rsync as part of their base install.

There's a GUI frontend for rsync called BackinTime I've heard spoken well of, though I used the command line because I wanted to learn how to use rsync directly.

Thank you for your responses about these backup options.

Knightron - With regards to using Clonezilla, from what I've read, you would need to shutdown the server and then reboot it using the Clonezilla CD and then unmount the drive your trying to backup, and seeing as I have both of my servers setup in a headless configuration, this option doesn't sound like it will work for what I'm wanting it to do. Am I correct in understanding this or is there a setup that I can run from the server itself?

Also, another question I have regarding a backup solution is this: When I SSH into one server, I can't seem to connect or see any files on my second server. Is there a command that would allow me to connect / view files or drives using SSH between the two servers? I can see both systems from my windows laptop, but only the folders shared in Samba. Is there a CLI command that I can use to view these files from one server to the other? Also, if I can't see one server to the other, how can I use a backup program to backup one server to the other?

hopefully this makes sense, as I'm not sure exactly how to word this conundrum..... and thank you all for your help. It seems the more I work with these servers, the more questions come up, and I am very grateful for this community in being able to help me find the answers I can't find in google.........

Mikey

Hey Dakoris73, i have zero experience with servers or SSH. I will confirm that yes you need need to shut down your computer to boot clonezilla. If this is not a viable option, then option Frankbell mentioned may be a better solution, but i have not used that either. It sounds interesting to me, and i plan to experiment with it in the future.

I'm personally partial to rsnapshot, which uses rsync to do its work, but it does a bit more than rsync by itself by setting up directories for incremental back-ups. Through some creative use of hard links, each back-up is a snapshot of the file system at the particular moment in time when the back-up was created, but the only additional space taken up is the space for files that have changed. It's a bit tough to explain, but if you read the rsnapshot documentation, you'll get the idea.

I've also played a bit with Duplicity, which has some nice features, but I found it not quite ready for prime time in a couple areas (it's still in beta). I wouldn't trust critical data to it just yet...

Hello again,

Thank you for the responses, and it seems that most comments refer to a form of rsync to be used for my backup solution, which sounds reasonable. So I guess I will start looking at rsync to see what it is, and how to set it up for my little network.

Thanks again.