On Fri, 4 Sep 2015, Jeff Chapin wrote: > The script would take a little tweaking, but it could work. > > I, personally, know that I would get lazy at some point and fail to swap > the drives for months on end. That could happen, but at least the drive is backed up to its attached external drive. > I would consider taking one of the drives to both locations, and getting > an initial backup of each location, and then mirroring that to the other > drive That part sounds OK, but... > -- and then have both locations back up to both drives. Do you mean that I should do backups over the internet? If so, I don't think I want to do that because of the bandwidth. > Alternatively, you could backup both drives to the local drive, and then > mirror the two drives (you could do hourly local backups, and nightly > remote copies). Since rsync only transfers the differences, once you > have the initial backup, it's likely that each day's change is fairly > small. If you use the flag to make rsync aware of the hardlinks, you > could presumably replicate a full copy of the day's hourly backups > fairly quickly. It is starting to get complicated! I love the idea of doing really cool, cutting-edge things, but I've been learning that it can take too much time away from other stuff I want to do. Maybe I can start out like you said -- back up to one, mirror to the other -- then just skip the time machine and do ordinary updates to the attached drive... rsync -av --update --delete /home /usr/local /etc /var /opt /media/me/back ...but also at least see if backing up also to the remote location is feasible: rsync -av --update --delete /home /usr/local /etc /var /opt remote:/media/me/back The script would have to have a way of checking for the existence of the attached hard drive both locally and remotely. Would it be a lot more work to add in the "time machine" functionality? Mike > On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 2:17 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > >> That is really cool! I'll have to try something like that. I'm thinking a >> good strategy is to have two drives, both with all the same stuff on them, >> and I'll use them both to backup all my Linux boxes (home, office, >> laptops). I'll just switch between home and office every week or so. That >> way if my house burns down or my office is burglarized, I still have a copy >> of everything from last week at the other location. >> >> Does that seem reasonable? The thing I'm not sure of is how that strategy >> would work with the "time machine" concept -- I'd be using two drives and >> swapping them weekly. >> >> Mike >> >> >> >> On Fri, 4 Sep 2015, Jeff Chapin wrote: >> >> Looking at the rsync command you gave, it looks correct -- but rsync can do >>> so much more when backing up! >>> >>> Using the magic of rsync, and the magic of hardlinks, you can make a full >>> backup, in incremental time and space. Rsync has, built into it, the >>> ability to compare your most recent backup files with existing backup >>> files, and if they are they same, use a hard link, and copy them over if >>> they differ. This allows you to store just the files that change -- but it >>> looks like a full backup every time it runs. This way, you can keep, say, >>> hourly backups for the last week -- and recover an accidentally deleted or >>> altered file, even after the latest backup has run. >>> >>> For more details: >>> https://blog.interlinked.org/tutorials/rsync_time_machine.html >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 8:21 AM, T L <tlunde at gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Assuming that you have NOTHING on the drive that you care about, I would >>>> remove the factory partitioning and create a new GPT table with parted. >>>> >>>> Then, format that as ext4. >>>> On Sep 3, 2015 3:17 PM, "Mike Miller" <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> How to format? >>>>> >>>>> I have a couple of Linux boxes that I would like to regularly backup to >>>>> a >>>>> 5 TB external drive. It seems like it would be a good idea to format >>>>> that >>>>> drive with ext4. Can I just do that with gparted? The drive comes with >>>>> NTFS format. Are there any issues I should know about? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Which directories to back up? >>>>> >>>>> What really needs to be backed up? I guess if the system totally failed >>>>> I'd install Linux (Ubuntu) again. Of course /home is needed, but >>>>> /usr/local and /opt often have programs I've installed and /etc will >>>>> have a >>>>> bunch of settings. I guess /var can have some important stuff. Are >>>>> crontabs stored in /var? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Which software to use for backup? >>>>> >>>>> I guess I want only to have in backup what is on the originating drive. >>>>> So if I have deleted a file, I want it to be deleted on the backup >>>>> drive, >>>>> too. I assume rsync can do this. Would this be correct?: >>>>> >>>>> rsync -av --update --delete /home /usr/local /etc /var /opt >>>>> /media/me/back >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> TIA! >>>>> >>>>> Mike >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>>> >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> Jeff Chapin >>> President, CedarLug, retired >>> President, UNIPC, "I'll get around to it" >>> President, UNI Scuba Club >>> Senator, NISG, retired >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > > > -- > Jeff Chapin > President, CedarLug, retired > President, UNIPC, "I'll get around to it" > President, UNI Scuba Club > Senator, NISG, retired >