B3 - brief note on File Sharing / Git / Backup

[theWebalyst]

Neat apps for B3 I've tried lately or hope to try soon:

- ownCloud 3 is awesome on B3 (file sharing, WebDav, lots of apps, great photo albumn)
- got a Git repo working on it yesterday (remarkably easy)
- found three very promising free backup apps to try (decreasing order of geekiness):

bup - early development, fast, space efficient, command line (backups mountable for easy restore via FUSE)

Affa - Linux command line tool, fast, space efficient (rync/hard links), email notifications/reports, automatically keeps desired length of montly, weekly, daily backup history.

Create Synchrnonicity - Linux/Windows GUI with all the trimmings according to brief description and reviews. This is a comprehensive, conventional Windows style backup system I think.

My guess is that for geeks, Affa using an openssh daemon on clients would be great, CS for simpler straightforward stuff, and bup if you are doing remote stuff or handling very large files.. but I have not tried any of them yet!

Will edit the post to include links shortly, but you should find them all on the big open source repos quite easly.

If you are using or try any out, please post to this thread just to let us know! Also if you have tried something else and like it.

Mark

[Moloko]

Affa seems reasoneable, I think I'll go ahead and try it out on my B2.

In the meanwhile, have you tried any of the backup software you mentioned, or have you found other worth trying out?

/MO

[theWebalyst]

Affa seems reasoneable, I think I'll go ahead and try it out on my B2.

In the meanwhile, have you tried any of the backup software you mentioned, or have you found other worth trying out?

/MO

Since posting I've tried several others and am settling on rsnapshot, which is similar to Affa (Affa was inspired by rsnapshot). Here are my summary notes about the two. Note that I have only read the manual on Affa, not actually tried it, but it looks very good. So I'd love to hear how you get on with it.

rsnapshot (time machine style, space efficient, rsync based scripts):
http://www.rsnapshot.org/rsnapshot.html

- rsync hard linking (time machine style space efficient backup tree)
- space/bandwidth efficient (using rsync)
- secure remote backup (using ssh)
- server (pull style)
- controlled using "conf" file
- automatic pruning to last N backups (monthly daily, hourly etc)
- schedule using cron
- no GUI
- command line control
- logging (controllable verbosity)
- include/exclude using include/exclude files
- has versions maintained for Debian, FreeBSD etc
- free software (GNU GPL)
- has active email discussion list (proved very helpful)
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/lis ... ot-discuss

Affa http://affa.sourceforge.net very similar to rsnapshot (see above)
For most people I think Affa would be the choice because it looks easier to setup, configure and manage, and has some advantages over rsnapshot. I would probably have stuck with it if I'd tried it first, but as rsnapshot seems to do the job, and allows me finer control over backup frequency I may stick with that now.

Main differences of Affa compared to rsnapshot (from reading Affa manual):

- looks easier to configure (rsnapshot is not difficult, just a bit more geeky)
- uses rsync over ssh, or rsyncd
- Windows style config file (simpler, more complete - hides cron setup)
- simpler control of scheduling, easier management of multiple configurations & client machines
- email error reporting (optional email success reporting)
- more command line control & reporting features
- extra functionality (e.g. deduplication of differently named files, control of job scheduling for performance, and probably more)
- disadvantages:
missing fine control of rsync options?
harder to obtain (RPM or tar, but probably not onerous)
less control of backup frequency (just daily, but controllable retention of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups as with rsnapshot)

FYI, I'm homing in on the following setup using B3 as secure backup for my main Windows workstation (and possibly other Windows/Linux clients):
rsnapshot - hourly backups to RAID (B3 Linux server) to multi-year auto pruned archive of past backups
rsync - four-hourly sync of client to RAID (B3 Linux server) by Windows Task Scheduler
Cobian - daily full backup to external disk attached to Windows client (provides redundancy), auto pruned to one full backup, plus one month of daily increments
Iomega QuickProtect - Windows client documents folders, to external disk of last ten file saved to external disk

Once that is looking ok I can probably drop the rsync mirroring, although I'll leave it until I have a reason to do so!

Mark

[Moloko]

Is there any of these backup sw that support encryption of backups?

[theWebalyst]

Is there any of these backup sw that support encryption of backups?

Take a look at Box Backup (http://boxbackup.org).

I've only just come across this client-server solution. It is functional but still in development (for some years), but an easily set-up, efficent backup server solution.

Here are the notes I just made from browsing the docs:

o Box Backup - nearly a viable alternative to rsnapshot (not quite ready for Windows clients)
- open source
- functioning but a work in progress
- fast, secure, efficient multiple client OS to server (Linux/various *nix)
- automatic & scheduled backup from client to server
- easily configured client setup
- inadequate for Windows, see: http://www.boxbackup.org/wiki/KnownBugsWin32
- VSS on Windows may be coming in 0.12
- background backup - notices changes and backs up to server
- snapshot backup - backup according to schedule (e.g. cron on server or client?)
- pruning of old files appears to be either automatic (serious bug in 0.11) or possibly manual, but not configurable like rsnapshot. Need to look into this.
- information on server is encrypted, file transfer is encrypted (safe over internet)
- transfers and stores changes (like rsync)
- verification commands (compares repository with client)
- not sure how easy to restore a given date/time, or how to explore repository
- command line + config files, but web and GUI under development: http://www.boxbackup.org/wiki/RelatedProjects

They also have a brief comparisson with similar systems: http://www.boxbackup.org/wiki/BoxComparison

Mark