backup questions (db WAL, dump, tar, jets3t synchronize)
Now I'm at the stage where I'd like to do a system backup. To me, the data in the DB is crucial, and I have that taken care of through postgres archiving. Now I'd just like to backup the server (configurations, software setup, etc). My thought is to just do a dump of the system to a gzip file using either tar or dump and just put it on s3.
Questions:
1. What's the best tool to use for this? I've heard that dump is a good built in command to use, though I've never used it before and I'm not sure what options to use for a live backup (-L, -h, etc). There's also rsnapshot, but I'm currently thinking of just having a single backup.
2. Is this backup plan good enough? I think that since the database is saved through postgresql and I'd have a one time "image" of the filesystem, if the system were to crash I would be able to restore from the image and rebuild the database. Am I missing anything else (i.e. is there a good reason for me to do something like rsnapshot or jets3t synchronize periodically?). Obviously if the software were to change, I'd have to backup the server again, but I don't plan on updating that often as this will be a production server.
Thanks!
2 Replies
1) Resize your disk image to be ~half its current size, and duplicate it.
PRO: Pretty easy, free.
CON: Requires shutting down the server, you lose half of your disk space, and it doesn't protect against catastrophic hardware failure.
2) Use Linode's backup service.
PRO: Pretty easy, works on the fly, doesn't eat into your disk space.
CON: Costs money, doesn't protect against catastrophic datacenter failure.
3) duplicity
PRO: Works well with S3 (and other mechanisms), encrypts the backups, works on the fly, stores your backups in a faraway location, doesn't eat into your disk space.
CON: Comparatively complex to set up, restores will be something you'll want to practice before you need to, churns your disk and network quite a bit.
I also have BackupPC running on a server here (that is, located where I am), but that's probably the most complex of all of these to set up, and it makes noise and produces heat in my domicile, so I'll leave that one off the list.
PRO: increases local durability, easy to set up, also allows failover
CON: see item #2