[plug] OS X -> Linux Backup

[Rob Davies]

As long as your OS X clients are using 10.4.3 their are no issues  
with rsync, you can initiate your rsync session from the Linux  
Server, I used to do this.

But, recently mainly due to mission critical work I initiate the  
backup process with an Automator workflow which backups to an  
external FireWire 800 drive connected to machines in a daisy chain  
amongst my studio machines.
This collection of FireWire Raid Drives rsyncs hourly or sooner  
pending on importance to the Linux Server. (iCal)

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/07/22/backup.html
http://www.egg-tech.com/mac_backup/
If issues occur try this How-To
http://www.lartmaker.nl/rsync/

Compressing files first saves disk space, but increases machine time  
in creating compressed file. Corruption of compressed file is an  
issue one must address.

Another solution I used to use is NFS running on a Linux Server  
within my OS X environment, which means basically one just needs to  
initiate the backup from within the Linux Server for OS X environment.

OS X Lab a site I find quite useful resources for all things OS X  
they recommend Retrospect, never tried.
http://www.thexlab.com/

Cheers!
'Rob...

On 11May2006, at 10:14 am, Timothy White wrote:

> Ok, finally decided to bring this to the list.
> Basically, I'm looking at setting up a backup system, that
> automagically backs machines up over the network, via rsync. Oh, and
> it's a Linux server, and OS X clients ;-)
>
> So the big question is, resource forks, and Extended Attributes.
> Now I'm fairly sure EA's are easy, and rsync will handle them, as long
> as my filesystem supports them, so as long as I use XFS, or reiserfs
> or ext3 with EA's enabled, I'll be fine.
> So the problem is Resource Forks. I know HFS+ supports them, and UFS
> doesn't, and  I believe OS X stores them as . files (.DS_Store I think
> is one example) on UFS, and other file systems that don't support the
> forks. I know the machines I'm backing up are all going to be HFS,
> which means firstly I need a version of rsync that supports resource
> forks, and a filesystem that also supports them.
>
> What do other people do in this instance? Do you even care about the
> forks? Somewhere I read it, it was only Finder info, and Carbon apps
> that needed them. I'm sure /someone/ on this list has faced this
> problem before, of having to backup OS X machines ;-)
>
> Lastly, what recommendations do people have about rsync based backups.
> I've seen rsnapshot, which uses hard links, and rotating backups. But
> I discovered the flaw, that for example, if you create a file on
> Tuesday, delete it on Wednesday, while it has made it into the daily
> backup for Tuesday, it will not make it into the weekly backup, so you
> have until next Tuesday to recover it. [1]
> Another one I'm looking at is rsync-diff. I've not yet tried it, so
> can't comment.
>
> What methods do people use to do incremental 'full' backups? A number
> of the machines getting backed up are laptop's as well, how do you
> handle this, do you try and do a backup as soon as it's plugged in?
> How do you handle backups that don't get to finish? I don't wish to do
> tar.gz style backups, cause all the other methods (snapshot style,
> using hardlinks, or complete image of latest version, with diffs in
> special folders) allow for easy browsing of at least the latest
> backup, and easy recovery of files.[2]
>
> Tim
>
> [1] If I was to use rsnapshot, I would set it up to do a month worth
> of daily's, or something similar.
> [2] I like rsnapshot's ability to provide the user with a 'complete'
> image for each backup. But don't like how it rotates the backups. I
> like rsync-diff for doing a single image, and diff's, but that doesn't
> make it as easy to restore older versions of the file.
> -- 
> Linux Counter user #273956
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