Home backup solution

[snaw]

Guys,

Anyone got any suggestions for a decent, preferably free home backup solution/software?

Got a media server with a tonne of storage, plus a desktop in my study and a macbook for whatever. Work off all three, looking for something fairly simple that'll do the job.

Ideas?

[TheFaQQer]

I just wrote a shell script that uses rsync to FTP the latest version of the files onto my NAS drive.

Not very sophisticated, and it only keeps the most recent copy, but for what I want it to do, it works fine.

I have three - one for my vmware drive, one for my data drive, one for my home directory on the desktop. One more to backup home from my laptop - everything else on the laptop can go if it dies.

[TheFaQQer]

Sorry - should have asked first - what are you planning to backup to?

I couldn't find a decent backup tool that would run on Linux and backup to a network drive, which is why I went with a custom script.

[snaw]

Sorry - should have asked first - what are you planning to backup to?

I couldn't find a decent backup tool that would run on Linux and backup to a network drive, which is why I went with a custom script.

Media server, got all the storage, runs XP (Got vmware on it to, so could run linux).

[murd]

I couldn't find a decent backup tool that would run on Linux and backup to a network drive, which is why I went with a custom script.

TheFaqqer:

You might want to have a look at rdiff-backup, similar syntax to rsync (uses librsync) but with the added bonus of incremental backups. I previously had hacked together an incremental rsync solution but have found rdiff-backup much more useful (especially the reverse-incremental aspect).

Example bash script I have to backup my home dir to a remote server.

#!/bin/bash

DEST_SERVER=whateverserver
DEST_LOCATION=whatever/location

ssh "$DEST_SERVER" mkdir -p "$DEST_LOCATION"

#rdiff-backup -v0 --remove-older-than 16W "$DEST_SERVER"::"$DEST_LOCATION"

rdiff-backup --terminal-verbosity 5 --force \
--exclude='**/.' \
--exclude='**/.DS_Store' \
--exclude='**/.Trash' \
--exclude='**/.macports' \
--include='**/.netbeans/*/**/config/Editors' \
--exclude='**/.netbeans/*' \
--exclude='**/advfn' \
--exclude='**/Documents/Virtual Machines*' \
--exclude='**/Downloads/bittorrent' \
--exclude='**/Downloads/new' \
--exclude='**/Downloads/apple-dev' \
--exclude='**/Library' \
--exclude='**/media' \
--exclude='**/Music' \
--exclude='**/iPhoto Library' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj1/dist' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj1/out' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj1/data/csv-full' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj1/data/markets*' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj2/tmp' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj3/out' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj4/java/build' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj4/abc/out' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj4/abc/targets' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj4/abc/war' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj5/dist' \
--exclude='**/projects/proj5/out' \
--exclude='**/Public' \
--exclude='**/tmp/ignorebackup' \
$HOME/ "$DEST_SERVER"::"$DEST_LOCATION"


Cheers

[TheFaQQer]

TheFaqqer:

You might want to have a look at rdiff-backup, similar syntax to rsync (uses librsync) but with the added bonus of incremental backups. I previously had hacked together an incremental rsync solution but have found rdiff-backup much more useful (especially the reverse-incremental aspect).

My NAS doesn't have rdff-backup installed. Looking on their website, I can add it though, so will have a play and see what happens.

One problem I found was that under Linux, when I mount the NAS as a shared drive to read from, the directory appears as a hidden folder in my home directory. So when I tried to backup the home folder, I ended up trying to backup the NAS to the NAS, which didn't work...

[murd]

One problem I found was that under Linux, when I mount the NAS as a shared drive to read from, the directory appears as a hidden folder in my home directory. So when I tried to backup the home folder, I ended up trying to backup the NAS to the NAS, which didn't work...

I wouldn't ever be mounting any remote drives, rsync / rdiff-backup are designed to work over ssh...

For example (where remote server IP is 192.168.101):
rsync -aPz /stuff/to/backup user@192.168.0.101:/remote/backup/location/

A read of the rsync man-page might be useful.

[TheFaQQer]

I wouldn't ever be mounting any remote drives, rsync / rdiff-backup are designed to work over ssh...

For example (where remote server IP is 192.168.101):
rsync -aPz /stuff/to/backup user@192.168.0.101:/remote/backup/location/

A read of the rsync man-page might be useful.

Sorry - it's if I've opened the NAS for anything else.

It's a moot point at the moment - the NAS only allows SSH as admin, so I've just installed OpenSSH and totally ****ed it so I can't SSH to it any more.

[cojak]

This is probably too basic for your needs but I find it an excellent little tool.

Karen's Replicator

[xoggoth]

Comodo backup is good for whole directories. Also FBackup4, easier for individual files from here and there. I use both.