Title: Non-commercial backup programs for Linux

KBTAG: kben10000050
URL: http://www.securityportal.com/lskb/10000050/kben10000050.html
Date created:
03/07/2000
Date modified:
Date removed:
Authors(s): Kurt Seifried seifried@securityportal.com
Topic: Non-commercial backup programs for Linux
Keywords: System/Backup, Software/Backup

Summary:

I don't know how many times I can tell people, but it never ceases to amaze me how often people are surprised by the fact that if they do not backup their data it will be gone, if the drive suffers a head crash on them or they hit 'delete' without thinking. Always backup your system, even if it's just the config files, you'll save yourself time and money in the long run.

More information:

Dump and restore

need to write this section

Tar and Gzip

Oldies but still goldies, tar and gzip. Why? Because like vi you can darn near bet the farm on the fact that any UNIX system will have tar and gzip. They may be slow, klunky and starting to show their age, but it's a universal tool that will get the job done. I find with Linux the installation of a typical system takes 15-30 minutes depending on the speed of the network/cdrom, configuration another 5-15 (assuming I have backups or it is very simple) and data restoration takes as long as it takes (definitely not something you should rush). Good example: I recently backed up a server and then proceeded to blow the filesystem away (and remove 2 physical HD's that I no longer needed), I then installed Red Hat 5.2, and reconfigured all 3 network cards, Apache (for about 10 virtual sites), Bind and several other services in about 15 minutes. If I had done it from scratch it would have taken me several hours. Simply:

tar -cvf archive-name.tar dir1 dir2 dir3....

to create the tarball of all your favorite files (typically /etc, /var/spool/mail/, /var/log/, /home, and any other user/system data), followed by a:
gzip -9 archive-name.tar
to compress it as much as possible (granted harddrive space is cheaper then a politicians promise but compressing it makes it easier to move around). You might want to use bzip, which is quite a bit better then gzip at compressing text, but it is quite a bit slower. I typically then make a copy of the archive on a remote server, either by ftping it or emailing it as an attachment if it's not to big (e.g. the backup of a typical firewall is around 100k or so of config files).

rsync

rsync is an ideal way to move data between servers. It is very efficient for maintaining large directory trees in synch (not real time mind you), and is relatively easy to configure and secure. rsync does not encrypt the data however so you should use something like IPSec if the data is sensitive. rsync is kben10000116.html

Amanda

Amanda is a client/server based network backup programs with support for most unices and Windows (via SAMBA). Amanda is BSD style licensed and available from: http://www.amanda.org/.

afbackup

Afbackup is another client/server with a generally GPL license with one minor exception, development of the server portion on Windows is forbidden. Afbackup has server support for Linux, HP-UX and Solaris, and has clients for that and windows. You can download it at:
ftp://ftp.zn-gmbh.com/pub/linux/.

Burt

Burt is a Tcl/Tk based set of extensions that allow for easy backups of Unix workstations, this allows it to run on pretty much any system. Burt is a client/server architecture and appears pretty scalable, it is available at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~jmelski/burt/.