Making copies of data so that the copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event, or for historical retention.
10
votes
4answers
1k views
How do I make a backup of a live server?
At my new job, I have a production server with the following qualities:
Windows Server 2003, ancient hardware
Absolutely vital database
No backups whatsoever
Everyone in the company has full admin ...
10
votes
2answers
224 views
Should the virtualization host be allowed to run any service?
I recently setup a virtualization server for the small company I'm running.
This server runs few virtual machines that are used for development, testing, etc...
My business partner works from a ...
10
votes
1answer
6k views
How can I do a dump of only the table structure in PostgreSQL?
In a similar vein to this question, how would I do a schema-only dump in PostgreSQL?
10
votes
4answers
4k views
How can I speed up a MySQL restore from a dump file?
I am restoring a 30GB database from a mysqldump file to an empty database on a new server. When running the SQL from the dump file, the restore starts very quickly and then starts to get slower and ...
10
votes
4answers
3k views
How do I backup my TRAC instalations?
We use separate TRAC instances as our ticket system for many projects and need to have them moved off site several times a day for disaster recovery. What is the best way to make this happen? Is ...
10
votes
9answers
6k views
rsync to multiple destinations using same filelist?
I'm wondering if it's possible for rsync to copy one directory to multiple remote destinations all in one go, or even in parallel. (not necessary, but would be useful.)
Normally, something like the ...
10
votes
1answer
4k views
Duplicity and Amazon S3 Script
I'm looking to backup my linux server to Amazon S3 using duplicity.
I found a great resource here that helped me get it setup and am using the basic script that was listed there for me and now copied ...
10
votes
2answers
5k views
Simple Backup Strategy for Amazon EC2 instances / volumes?
You have entered Introductory Backups for Amazon EC2 EBS-backed Windows Images 010...
I have been browsing my brains out to find a simple backup strategy for our single windows 2008 server running ...
10
votes
6answers
734 views
How to choose a cloud service for backups
I am thinking of using a cloud service to backup one of my client's website.
My (clients) main concerns are (in decreasing order of importance)
Protection of IP (trade secrets, source code), user ...
10
votes
3answers
2k views
btrfs-enabled backup solution
With btrfs hitting production in Oracle EL 14th this month (together with working fsck and scrubbing from Linux 3.2) I was thinking of redesigning my current backup solution to utilise it. Note that ...
10
votes
5answers
5k views
Backup solutions for Rackspace cloud sites?
What options do I have for backing up the content from a Rackspace Cloud Sites including files and databases? I know they have cron jobs, but I am not sure what options I have when it comes to that.
...
9
votes
13answers
4k views
What is your recommended disk cloning tool?
Symantec Ghost used to be the tool to use, but from what I read, you no longer get a cli-client, unless you are willing to buy the Ghost Solution Suite at least 5 licenses and have another service ...
9
votes
3answers
6k views
What is Time Machine doing?
Sometimes OS X tells me that it's "Preparing backup..." for an enormous amount of time. The time it takes seems to have no correlation to the amount of data to be backed up. Same for the "Finishing ...
9
votes
4answers
1k views
Should I backup and restore the `mysql` database?
In the process of creating an automated solution for backing up and restoring an entire MySQL server, I've come across the mysql database which seems to contain user accounts, permissions, metadata, ...
9
votes
4answers
6k views
What's the best way to automate backing-up of PostgreSQL databases?
I find it tedious to have to backup databases every week. And I also think weekly backups should be turned into daily backups. If I had to do that, I don't want to do it manually. What's the best way ...
9
votes
9answers
2k views
Best mixed environment (OS X + Windows) backup? [closed]
Maybe I'm chasing a pipe dream here, but I'd really like to find an easy to use backup solution that supports both Windows and OS X, presumably something people never have to think about until the ...
9
votes
3answers
5k views
protocol version mismatch — is your shell clean?
When following the instructions to do rsync backups given here: http://troy.jdmz.net/rsync/index.html
I get the error "protocol version mismatch -- is your shell clean?"
I read somewhere that I ...
9
votes
9answers
3k views
Tool or script to detect moved or renamed files on Linux prior to a backup
Basically I am searching to see if there exists a tool or script that can detect moved or renamed files so that I can get a list of renamed/moved files and apply the same operation on the other end of ...
9
votes
5answers
208 views
How can I decrease the time spent reformatting / restoring user's workstations?
I started working for a medium sized company (approx. 150 users). When user's workstations need to be reformatted for any variety of reasons, we reformat, reinstall windows from an oem disk, install ...
9
votes
8answers
3k views
Backup Solutions for Exchange 2007
What Backup solutions do people use for Exchange 2007? In particular i'm interested in those that allow a mailbox level backup, so that individual mailboxes can be restored.
9
votes
4answers
5k views
Backing up qcow2 kvm guests
I can't find any good info on backing up qcow2 kvm guests. I'm not really interested in the guests running state, only the file system. This question suggests using savevm but that creates a snapshot ...
9
votes
3answers
1k views
VirtualBox - use in small office and backing up
I run a small office consisting of a 8 man development team and a couple of managers. We're thinking of moving to a hardware setup whereby we have 1 single powerful server running several VirtualBox ...
9
votes
6answers
10k views
How do you backup a SAN?
long time reader, first time asker :)
I have been reading up a lot on iSCSI and SANs in general and I believe I have been able to answer most of my questions and concerns on the topic, but this one ...
9
votes
6answers
743 views
What backup software offerings are fit for “enterprise” use?
Coming from the FOSS area, there are few backup solutions which are fit for use in larger environments.
There's an abundance of existing commercial backup software and I'm interested how they measure ...
9
votes
2answers
790 views
Which is better for website backup - rsync or git push
I run 2 LAMP web servers at different providers for disaster recovery purposes - a high powered live server, and a low powered backup server.
Currently I rsync all the data from the live server to ...
9
votes
2answers
565 views
Areca 1280ml RAID6 volume set failed
Today we hit some kind of worst case scenario and are open to any kind of good ideas.
Here is our problem:
We are using several dedicated storage servers to host our virtual machines. Before I ...
8
votes
8answers
2k views
Open source backup solution for windows, mac and linux
I'm the sysadmin for a small company (60 users over two sites). We have a mix of Windows, Mac and Linux desktop machines.
I have set-up a backup server at both sites with a large amount of storage ...
8
votes
7answers
6k views
Best way to do Subversion backups?
What is the best way to do Subversion backups (on a Debian based server).
Is it to use svnadmin?
svnadmin dump /path/to/reponame > reponame.dump
Or maybe just to tar the dir where the ...
8
votes
4answers
307 views
Should static data be backed up every time to tape?
In the Backup and Recovery book, they write it is good practice to make a full backup every month, and then increments or differential back up each week.
What if I have 800GB data and ~10GB changes ...
8
votes
8answers
1k views
S3 Interfaces for Backup, etc
Since none of the S3 "file systems" are compatible right now, what s3 gateway tool do you recommend for mounting a remote S3 bucket for backups? I've been using S3FS, but I've heard a lot of people ...
8
votes
3answers
922 views
Backup storage server with ZFS
I am IT everything man at a small company. I want to design a new infrastructure including a new server and a separate backup server with company wide backup policy.
The most important thing in the ...
8
votes
5answers
2k views
Nearest PC equivalent to Mac Target Disk Mode? [closed]
Mac firmware has a special boot mode that allows you to offer its internal hdd to another computer as an external disk (you just connect the two machines via an IEEE 1394 cable). Only the second ...
8
votes
2answers
526 views
Is it a good idea to back up SQL database to an External USB Hard Drive?
I will be installing a Database System on an Offshore Oil Platform (rack Servers). They have very limited hardware and space therefore sending up a backup infrastructure is not possible. Sending ...
8
votes
5answers
376 views
How good/safe are disk to disk backups?
In the good old days, backups went to tapes, some of which were often offline if not offsite. This made it difficult to destroy all backups (accidentally or maliciously), especially if the ...
8
votes
4answers
3k views
How to move Linux to another partition?
I need to make a copy of a working linux system, which (being contained in /, and the new place is prepared in /mnt/sdb5) seems to contain considerable amount of hard-, soft-links and special files in ...
8
votes
8answers
5k views
How do I backup a mysql database, but at low priority?
I want to backup a database, but during the day when there is load on the server. It's vital that the backup doesn't impact apache and other databases running on the same server.
It should be ...
8
votes
3answers
244 views
How Serviceable are Tape Drives?
I'm contemplating an auto-loading tape drive as part of a backup strategy. This would be my first experience with tape backup. The cost-effectiveness of tape drives seems to depend on the assumption ...
8
votes
6answers
2k views
Optimal way to make MySQL backups for fairly large databases (MyISAM / InnoDB)
Currently we have one beefy MySQL database that runs a couple of high traffic Django based websites as well as some e-commerce websites of decent size. As a result we have a fair amount of large ...
8
votes
3answers
11k views
Amanda, Bacula, BackupPC Which has a reliable windows client?
I wish to setup an automated backup system for three Windows XP machines in the same building to a Linux server out on the WAN. I visit each machine every few months and make a disk image for a bare ...
8
votes
3answers
249 views
How do you backup 40+ Centos5.5 servers?
We are embarrassed to ask this question. Apologies for our lack of UNIX expertise.
We have inherited 40+ centos 5.5 servers, and don't know how to back them up.
We need low level clone type images so ...
8
votes
1answer
222 views
Migrate live server
I'm in trouble, I have a running server with the usual services (httpd, mail, sql), and looks like I must be really fast to prevent total data loss (my RAID array failed, so I'm depending on a single ...
8
votes
6answers
812 views
How do you handle data archiving?
Backups are one thing, but long term archival is another. For example, you might be required to store emails for 7 years, or keep all project data indefinitely. I used to save archives to tape, but ...
8
votes
3answers
3k views
Backup solution for 10TB of data and 3 servers
I am looking for a backup solution for this scenario:
3 servers (One Linux mail server, 2 Windows Servers)
~ 10TB of data
2 TB of which are in daily use
a few GB of activity/change per day
ability ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Looking to replace Ghost with FSArchiver or Clonezilla, few questions about capabilities
I work for a PC Repair company and we are looking into setting up a dedicated machine with externally accessible SATA bays to clone harddrives as a safety net incase something goes wrong during a ...
7
votes
4answers
307 views
Backing up permissions on Linux
Due to an intermittent internet connecton and some fat fingered typing, I came very close to sending the command chown -R me.group / to my server, which I think would be fairly disruptive.
Is there a ...
7
votes
4answers
495 views
SQL Server live database backup strategies
I'm trying to come up with a backup strategy for SQL Server 2005. I am thinking of doing full backup once a week, differential backup once a day and transaction log backup every 15 minutes. The ...
7
votes
7answers
611 views
Good backup solution?
What's a good backup solution, that isn't too overcomplicated but would work well for some windows servers? Right now, we're using Handy backup. It's a $30 utility... and it works... except for when ...
7
votes
11answers
1k views
On Linux, what is a faster way than `find` or `diff -r` to see if something inside a directory has changed?
I use tar to create a snapshot of different parts of the filesystem on my servers and then ftp that snapshot to an offsite location for archiving.
I would like to only start that operation when ...
7
votes
7answers
2k views
How to backup a linode 360 VPS?
I have a php/vbulletin/apache server running a 360 instance of linode.
I am wondering what is the best way to remote backup the server in another location?
I'm guessing I have two options, FTP and ...
7
votes
9answers
1k views
How do you usually back up your database?
I am using mysql
How often do you back up your database?
How do you normally backup your database?
Export all data into sql or cvs format and keep it in a folder??
