# Backing up Servers...Howto?

## cayenne

Hello all,

I hope this is the correct forum for this type question. I'm currently building my first web server with Gentoo. I'm wanting to host not only my websites...but, those for friends, family...and possibly some for $$'s.

I'm new to being an SA....and while I know I need to back things up...I'm completely lost on where to start. I've looked through the forums...found some suggestions like using dd, part-image....pieces and parts that would probably make more sense to me if I was familiar with basic backup strategies.

What is the best way to go, hardware wise? Some kind of tape? I can't afford anything super expensive. Is building a 'file server' say on an older box, loaded up with cheap hard drives the best way to go? 

I want to be able if one of my boxes goes down...to slap in a new harddrive...and restore it to where it was prior to last backup. Is there a way to do full backups every once in awhile...and just incremental after that...via open source software? What packages should I be looking at.

Anyway, as you can tell....I'm big time noob at this...but, want to learn and build a good system. Any links, suggestions, comments greatly appreciated.

cayenne

 :Very Happy: 

----------

## deflin39

HI

You may be interested in Stage4 wiki.  I use this concept to backup my gentoo boxes.  I usually have the script split the files so I can burn to removeable media.

[edit] I think I missed the point of your post.  You seemed interested in hardware more specifically.  Sorry bout that.[/edit]

deflin39

----------

## Janne Pikkarainen

Backups are a very complicated issue.

Hardware-wise I like to have a system, where I have

a) a backup server with plenty of disk-space for online-backups, so I can quickly restore whatever I need.

b) some method for off-site backups. Depending on how much data you have, the method can be almost anything from removable USB drives to CD/DVD discs or backup tapes. If possible, backing up over network to some remote location is also a good choice.

No matter what the method is, the most important thing is to have off-site backups! Having the most sophisticated method for online-backups doesn't help a bit in case of fire / flood / tornado / some other catastrophe.

Software-wise there are also plenty of choices. What suites you depends on how much data you have to backup and how often you need to back up. For small setups almost anything goes, but if you have hundreds of gigabytes of files or even more, you'll need to evaluate different possibilities very carefully.

For small setups rdiff-backup could be a good choice. It uses rsync as its backup method, so backing up (after initial backup) is very fast.

Bigger and/or more complex setups could use Bacula or BackupPC. I'm more familiar with BackupPC; it's very versatile piece of software and can use (at least) nfs/smb shares, tar or rsync for backups. Backups and their status can be seen and browsed via a nice www interface.

There are also some commercial choices available, like Arkeia.

Hope this helps.  :Smile: 

----------

## bluedevils

How much data is being backed up?  How often does it change?

I would keep the OS on a separate drive from the data.  Mirrored OS drives would be your first line of defense there.  If it's not that much data and changes are few then you coud burn a dvd (even tarball it if it is a little more than 9GB).  Rsync to a lesser box with good HDs is a relatively cheap answer too.  Tape backups using the dump command is pretty common, but the drives might cost too much.

----------

## wesw02

maybe, try setting up an rsync server and using another box (only allowing lan to access it), thats how I would do it.

----------

## BlinkEye

for the full backup solution using bash and standard tools you may want to read this post

----------

