[NBLUG/talk] Which backup software?

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Fri, Sep 05, 2003 at 09:04:59AM -0700, Doug Palmer wrote:
> I need recommendations for backup software for a smallish Linux network
> (4-6 servers, 25-40 users). Also, do people usually have a backup
> solution at each branch office?
> I saw the Veritas stuff at Linux World and it seemed very nice but
> somehow I forgot which package I would need. Recommendations?

Well, it's all gonna depend on what you need, but at least give Amanda a
good look.

We're currently using Amanda to back up 8 Linux servers (and stuff from a
couple workstations) to a single LTO tape drive attached to one of the
servers.  Works just great.  Emails us all a report of how it did, prints
out an entry for our logbook (I customized the postscript a little, though),
etc.  Grabs backups from several servers at once into a holding area (/tmp)
and writes to tape once its got a complete image (goes direct to tape if
there's no room, though).  If we forget to rotate the tape, it does
incrementals (we normally do a full every night) which can be flushed to
tape later.  I really wish we had a tape changer for those backups, but
otherwise its working just fine and dandy.  Restorals are reasonably easy
(either pick and choose individual files to restore or restore a whole
partition), and recovering from a complete wipeout of everything can be done
with just dd, tar or dump, and gzip.