Backup strategies for linux based file servers

Question

I want to know some enterprise-wide backup strategies used for linux based file servers. What are the tools and techniques used when making a backup. for e.g when a backup fails on a machine, it should email the admin about the failure and also a log file. This won't happen incase the HDD fails and the system is completely out of work, but in other cases where a backup didn't take place, the admin should be able to know. What tool/scripts can be used for this particular scenarios?

Answer 1

rsync!

or rather, rsnapshot (which uses rsync)

Answer 2

there are probably dozens of backup solutions for linux, the two that come to mind are bacula and amanda i don't personally have extensive experience with either, but they are both actively developed and more than likely have options for notification of failure.

barring that, you can easily roll your own backup solution using rsync and other assorted tools, like tar, cpio, gzip or bzip2 a VERY simple example:

#!/bin/bash
rsync localdirectory backuphost:/remotepath/
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "backup failed" | sendmail -t admin@example.com -s "backup failed"
fi

but that's just a ridiculously simple and non-complete example.

http://www.bacula.org/en/

http://www.amanda.org/

Answer 3

One more excellent backup-software: BackupPC.

Answer 4

dump/restore has worked for many years and still works great.