How to backup server + other clients on the network?

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v1pEr · Post by **v1pEr** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:46 pm

Hello all,

I've been adding features to my Gentoo server now and then and now it's time for the next step: backups

On my previous homeserver, opensuse, box I had a backup script that backed up everything except some folders, made a tar.gz of it and stored it as a daily, weekly and monthly backup.

As I could use this script again without any problems, I would consider another approach if that would mean that I could also backup 3 mixed clients on my home network remotely.

So what do I want?

1) Periodic backup of the gentoo box itself
2) Backup of remote clients (windows + linux), software running on the client is no problem
3) Daily, weekly and monthly backups
4) Keep the filesize of the backups as low as possible
5) Easy restore for both linux and windows

I have been looking around in http://gentoo-portage.com/app-backup but I would like to hear user experiences. I'm sure almost everybody makes backups, but how do you do it?

backuppc looks nice feature-wise, but I don't know if it's really what I need.

Thank you in advance for your opinions

jongeek · Post by **jongeek** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:04 pm

I've been using amanda at home and work for years. Works great. My OS install is on its own SATA drive, data is on a RAID-1 array, and backups of both go to an external SATA drive connected via firewire.

v1pEr · Post by **v1pEr** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:17 am

How does amanda get the data of the windows clients, is it a client running on the windows box or do you have to share the whole drive so the server can access it? Is it the server that polls and decides when to take a backup or is it the windows client? If the latter, does the client warn you when it's taking a backup and you want to shut down but it's not complete yet?

And what about restore, did you need it already and if so, how was it done?

Sorry for all the questions

jongeek · Post by **jongeek** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:45 am

Amanda has a native Windows client. I have done restores before, on work machines (knock on wood, never had a problem with my home boxes), and its very straightforward. I used the text-based restore interface, select the host (I was backing up multiple clients), the date to restore from, and you can select the directory to restore, or any sub-directory thereof.

Check out the web page for better answers to your questions. Particularly, the Quick Start guide shows how to get things going quickly. Amanda is more of an enterprise solution than a home solution, but it scales down pretty well.