Hello everyone,

I apologize if this is the wrong forum for me to post in, but I have a bit of a situation and was hoping to get some advice. I recently took over a network that is composed entirely of Linux servers after a career of managing Windows servers. I'm picking things up relatively quickly but ran into a big problem with the backups. Not all of the servers are being backed up. I would like to resolve this ASAP. We have a handful of old servers that are going to be decommissioned and there is no backups for them. Yesterday I had a situation where it seemed that a lot of data was lost from a production server. What is the quickest way to get them backed up reliably? My first guess was rscync but thought I would check with some experts on how they would handle this first. I would really like to get all of the servers backed up as soon as possible while I work on a long term solution. I have an external HD at my disposal as well as a SAN if the space requires it.

Thanks for your input! It is greatly appreciated.

Hi, first off, warm welcome here and congrats on the (new) job...though...I feel you've inherited a toxic legacy....
Okay, data is the word...only...data.
Never mind the OS, that can (ans sometimes HAS) to be re-installed...
What servers are they? Personal data? Then there is a /home folder with folders in there named after the user ID's...that is the data you are after...a copy of the whole /home folder...
A web server? Depending on the distro, it's usually /var/www/ and everything in there has to be saved...this page has some instructions on that...
A data server? MySQL allows you to make one big SQL statement of the whole database...it's in "export"...users are not taken along with that, be aware...but...mySQL has a backup routine of course...
I feel for you, I was in almost exactly the same spot in a "previous" life...
I will keep a close tab on this one...just because
Melissa
Edit - is recycling the old servers just for back up storage an option? If so, after the rescue is done, RSYNC is a great way to go.

rsync is certainly a good start. It is reliable and can get the job done. It has a great many features, and so there are many different ways to use it, depending on what you expect and require of your backup method.

If you search Linux Questions or the web for "rsync backup", you will find suggestions on how to use shell scripts to automate backups with rsync, and how to use cron to schedule automatic backups.

If you search for "linux backup", you will find many other backup utilities. I have heard good things about Bacula and Clonezilla, but I haven't used either.