backup question - NFS share in Ubuntu 9.04 backup to READYNAS NV+

newellrp1 · 05-15-2009, 11:19 AM

Hello,
I set up my ubuntu 9.04 install to be backed up to my Netgear READYNAS by sharing "/" with read/write permission to the IP address of the NAS. Then I set up a backup job in the NAS with the source as the NFS share of my root filesystem and the backup destination as a folder in my backup share on the NAS. I'm getting the following error message:

Code:

Error encountered copying data from remote source path 192.168.1.108:/ ==> /backup/Gaspar/ubuntu due to permission denial on one or more files.


cp: cannot access '/job_001/./var/spool/cron/atspool': Permission denied
cp: cannot access '/job_001/./var/spool/cron/crontabs': Permission denied
cp: cannot access '/job_001/./var/spool/cron/atjobs': Permission denied
cp: cannot access '/job_001/./var/spool/cups': Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/spool/anacron/cron.daily' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/spool/anacron/cron.monthly' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/spool/anacron/cron.weekly' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/spool/openoffice/uno_packages/cache/uno_packages/aUQOGn' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/mail.err' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/debug.0' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/user.log.0' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/news/news.err' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/news/news.crit' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/news/news.notice' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/kern.log' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/kern.log.0' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/fsck/checkfs' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/fsck/checkroot' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/auth.log.0' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/dmesg.0' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/auth.log' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/syslog' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/apt/term.log' for reading: Permission denied
cp: cannot open '/job_001/./var/log/boot' for reading: Permission denied

There's more of the same. I figured this was a representative sample. The whole "/job_001/." part is just what the NAS is callig its backup job. I assume the reason the backup is failing on those files is because they are owned by root and maybe the share is owned by another user.
Do I even need to back up my entire install? It would be nice to get a Norton Ghost-like diskimage to back up instead of copying an NFS share.
Any suggestions?

Tinkster · 05-16-2009, 08:24 PM

You could tar stuff up to the NAS, you could use rsync as
root, you could use something like partimage to create a
"ghost like" solution.

You could just back up directories you know you've made
changes to, and leave the rest to a bare-metal restore
using an installation CD and copying back the stuff you
backed-up ...

You could look at replicating, distributed file systems.

Options by the truck-load. The question is: what do you
need from this? An as quick as possible re-install? A few
hours of downtime are OK?

Cheers,
Tink

newellrp1 · 05-19-2009, 04:53 PM

I would like to use partimage, but it doesn't support ext4. Also not sure if it does incremental backups.

cp of the whole filesystem didn't go too well as I wrote above.

I tried making a tarball of /. I think it worked, but I got a lot of errors. I think they were from all of the stuff in /dev and /proc that aren't really files per se. I think maybe if I could tarball just the necessary config files to recover from a vanilla install. Is there some way to automatically install all of the packages I had previously installed (ie. can I back up a list of packages and repositories that I want to be reinstalled after I do a fresh reinstall?).

I guess I'm trying to figure out the best way of preserving the whole system state and restoring it if something catastrophic happens. I've also killed the functionality of my Ubuntu install just by trying to install the restricted graphics drivers (nVIDIA). It put the system in a not-bootable (into the GUI) state and I didn't know how to roll back to the way my system was before.

newellrp1 · 05-19-2009, 04:57 PM

A quick reinstall would be nice, but not required. I really like the way Norton Ghost works with the image plus incrementals.