[H-GEN] Linux backup tool of choice

[Jason Parker-Burlingham]

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David Findlay <david at davsoft.com.au> writes:

> Could anyone give me recommendations on their preferred linux backup
> tools?

This gets discussed on the lists every few months; you might want to
look at the archives.

I like to use dump(8) or its equivalent for the filesystem being
backed up.  (Note that ReiserFS does not, as far as I know, have a
tool like this, yet.)

> I'm after something to do backups to tape. I'd like to do a full
> system backup, as well as incremental backups daily. Needs to run
> unattended and email a report somewhere. Any preferences, ideas?

AMANDA is definitely a solution to your problem.  There are other
projects but they're smaller and less well-tested, or commercial and
thus perhaps unpalatable (they sure are to me).  

Writing your own is also possible (just putting the appropriate dump
command in a shell script or crontab might do) but I wouldn't
recommend that route unless you're pretty confident of your skills.

One further word of advice:  test your backups regularly.  All those
tapes will do you no good if you've been writing unusable data.
-- 
``I didn't program you for sarcasm.''

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