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Date:      Wed, 1 Jan 2003 02:27:54 -0600
From:      Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc:        Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be>, Patrick Cable II <freebsd@slaudiovis.org>, chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Backup Solutions
Message-ID:  <a05200f0cba3853b5bcaf@[10.0.1.5]>
In-Reply-To: <3E0FF119.7792A270@mindspring.com>
References:  <3E0DC536.8010001@slaudiovis.org>	 <3E0EBC49.86AD7E28@mindspring.com> <a05200f09ba3573361365@[10.0.1.5]> <3E0FF119.7792A270@mindspring.com>

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At 11:09 PM -0800 2002/12/29, Terry Lambert wrote:

>  For Windows and Macintosh, you are most likely to be using some
>  Microsoft based solution, like Access, or Access with a Microsoft
>  SQL back end.

	You say I'm going to be using *WHAT* to do a file/filesystem 
level backup of my Mac?!?  You know, the one running MacOS X, which 
is a Mach kernel with a BSD userland?

	If you're talking databases on Macs, then you're probably talking 
Filemaker or something like that.  And that's a totally different 
kettle of fish than anything related to anything remotely resembling 
anything relating to Microsoft.

>  In etiher case, the offline backup is still needed for the reasons
>  stated previously.  That business uses tape to do a rotating offsite
>  backup, with an incremental and full archival dump schedule.  These
>  require that people exit the applications, so it can be some work
>  walking around the office after hours, for the person doing it, if
>  anyone has left their machine on and accessing a record in any of
>  them.

	In our case, we're talking about laptops that will probably be 
somewhere else in the house, networked via 802.11b with a proper 
software VPN solution for real security.  There would definitely need 
to be some automated process to fire up the backup script to run 
overnight, and to shut the machine down when it's done.

>>          Is there an Amanda PC/Windows client?  Or an Amanda MacOS X
>>  client?
>
>  There is one in beta right now.  IT's available from:
>
>  	http://sourceforge.net/projects/amanda-win32/
>
>  It doesn't seem to have been updated since last June.  8-(.
>
>  You probably are not going to find it useful, due to the "open
>  file backup" problem.  The normal way to handle "open file backup"
>  on windows is to install an IFSMgr hook to hook calls into the
>  IFS manager.  You can then use the existing open instance for the
>  file in question in order to back it up.

	Sounds good.  I don't suppose anyone knows if anyone is ever 
planning on adding features like this to the Amanda PC client?

>   This is usually not
>  very satisfying for database files, since the transactional
>  representation of atomicity and/or idempotence to the application
>  are done at the database application level, and can't be guaranteed
>  at the IFSMgr level (there is no nesting information pushed by the
>  application to the IFSMgr, so you can wait for a 1->0 nesting level
>  for transactions in progress to complete, before doing your backup).

	While these issues may be important to others, we do not 
currently have any call for databases like this in our house.  If we 
ever do have any databases, it will most likely be MySQL or 
PostgreSQL databases that I have on a FreeBSD server in the basement, 
and I'll have to figure out how to back that up as a separate issue.

>  The most common method is to export the FS as a share, and then
>  use Amanda with SAMBA (client) in order to back up the data; this
>  has the same problems.  See the online book at:
>
>  	http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html
>
>  specifically:
>
>  	http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda-13.html

	There are not currently any Unix filesystems in our house being 
exported via Samba, as there are currently not any Unix fileservers 
in the house.

	When I do set up the fileservers, there almost certainly won't 
ever be any databases running on the exported filesystems, so I would 
be inclined to believe that these filesystems should be backed up 
from the client side.


	As far as this specific stuff is concerned, I know Curt and used 
to work with him.  I was an uncredited reviewer of _Using SANs and 
NAS_, and I imagine that I will probably be a reviewer for 2nd 
edition of his book on backups (whenever we get to that stage).

	I'm not worried so much about the server backup issues, at least 
not per se.  I am more concerned about the client file/filesysystem 
backup issues, and how I can get that data onto a server where I can 
reliably back it up somewhere else.  Moreover, I want to use freely 
available software and reasonably inexpensive hardware, which is a 
good part of the reason why FreeBSD would also be involved on the 
server side.

>>  What about the handling of tape swapping, archiving, and
>>  other things normally done with stackers and libraries?
>
>  You use stackers and libraries.  8-).

	IIRC, Amanda doesn't support stackers or libraries.  Are there 
any other tools that do?

>  In most cases, you are talking about spending money for commercial
>  software, since the professional database backup software is often
>  a seperate product add-on.

	At the moment, we're not using any database software, so anything 
specific to databases is not currently relevant, although I do want 
to keep these things in mind as I try to design a comprehensive 
backup solution.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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