[gtaSAGE-members] backup client

[Fraser Campbell]

On Friday 13 June 2003 11:51, Julian C. Dunn wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Duane Bedeau wrote:
> > I'm looking for a graphical backup client/server for linux.  I've tried
> > Arkeia and storix but neither REALLY serves my purposes.  Arkeia
> > seems to need a paid license to work and storix doesn't allow me to
> > restore individual files.  Are they any others or should I just rely on
> > old fashioned tar/cron?
>
> Why does it need to be graphical...?
>
> I used to have a homegrown tar script, but I've switched to AMANDA and I
> like it. It's a bit daunting to set up, but it works perfectly now, and
> uses the tape host's native backup tools like dump or ufsdump -- no
> proprietary tape formats here. There is an interactive FTP-like restore
> client, too.

I would second the amanda recommendation.  I've used it in quite a few places 
and it's pretty much hands-off once setup.  The interacive restore/index 
browser is *very* nice.  There are shortcomings with amanda though:

- doesn't support archiving to multiple tapes
- doesn't support appending to tape, we have a client using 100GB tapes and
  their incrementals are in the 100s of MB, seems like a waste of tape almost
- you need multiple configs if you want to have offsite backups (this one's
  easy enough to get around)

The first issue is becoming a big problem for us.  We have several filesystems 
that are well over the 20GB limit of our tapes, full dumps aren't possible 
unless we buy a larger capacity tape solution or split up those filesystems 
(doable of course).

There is another backup system called afbackup that sounds very similar to 
amanda but it doesn't have the single tape limitation, or append to tape, 
limitations.  I haven't tried afbackup yet, anyone here have experience with 
it?

-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser@wehave.net>                 http://www.wehave.net/
Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada                              Debian GNU/Linux