Re: git as backup/DRP; also meta-question about Majordomo

Re: git as backup/DRP; also meta-question about Majordomo

[Damon Getsman]

 Hello!  :) I've got a couple of questions for y'all.

 Q1: First of all, I'm being handed a project whereas I am to find and
implement some sort of backup system across a wide range of various
Linux hosts and a couple of windows machines.  This backup system is
to basically be a 'pseudo-TimeVault' if you're familiar with Mac
OS/X's current backup system.  I need to be able to roll back to any
particular revision.

 A few of my first thoughts were pretty primitive, and included
basically doing periodic compressed tarballs with a rotator to make
sure that I don't run out of available space.  These would hold the
commonly changing and most important data while a one time master
backup would hold the system configuration, etc, etc, so that
basically I could create a minimal install on a clone of the same
machine, throw on the master backup, then the most recent data, and
call it done.  obviously this is an obtuse method for doing so; it is
also the method that we're trying to get away from as my predecessor
was using an even dumber version of the same scheme.

 When I started digging, it seemed that 'svn' or 'git' might work
well, if able to handle binaries, and definitely for systemwide
configuration areas such as /etc.  Finding git+etckeeper was a
treasure, especially as I realized that svn wasn't able to hold
anything binary at all.  I'm working right now on implementing
etckeeper for system configuration repositories, but this still leaves
a large portion of what I'd like to work with to the 'dumb tarball'
scheme.

 Since I've come in today I've run across a few blog articles that
seem to indicate that git + some customization might be able to handle
a larger portion of this for me, thus simplifying what I am trying to
do:
   * http://eigenclass.org/hiki/gibak-backup-system-introduction <-
this link is a prime example

 Does anybody have any resources or personal tips from utilizations
that they're working with to share?  I'd be very much appreciative for
anything that can assist me in finding out exactly what I can deploy
and, obviously, the howtos (if they exist) for such a scheme.
Personal experience in the same areas would be great to hear, too.

 Thanks in advance on that one!

 Q2: I haven't found any way to tell the 'majordomo' mailing list
software running this list that I am not happy receiving 40-60 emails
in my business email inbox per day.  Of course I can use google to
filter them, but I'd still rather just get a daily digest if this is
at all possible.  Am I missing something obvious?

 TIA again.

 ----------
 Damon Getsman
 -=-=-=-
 ITRx http://www.itrx-nd.com/
 Programmer/IT Customer Relations/Sys Admin
 -=-=-=-

Re: git as backup/DRP; also meta-question about Majordomo

[Jay Soffian]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Damon Getsman <dgetsman@amirehab.net> wrote:
>  Hello!  :) I've got a couple of questions for y'all.
>
>  Q1: First of all, I'm being handed a project whereas I am to find and
> implement some sort of backup system across a wide range of various
> Linux hosts and a couple of windows machines.  This backup system is
> to basically be a 'pseudo-TimeVault' if you're familiar with Mac
> OS/X's current backup system.  I need to be able to roll back to any
> particular revision.

I think you may want something more like
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

You're going to run into issues with git if you have to store very
large files. Also, if you need to delete a file from the backups for
some reason, you may find it more difficult than you'd like (you have
to use filter-branch and rewrite history).

I'm not saying it cannot be done with git, but you'll be using it for
a purpose for which it was not intended.

You might also consider a filesystem which offers snapshots.

>  Q2: I haven't found any way to tell the 'majordomo' mailing list
> software running this list that I am not happy receiving 40-60 emails
> in my business email inbox per day.  Of course I can use google to
> filter them, but I'd still rather just get a daily digest if this is
> at all possible.  Am I missing something obvious?

vger.kernel.org does not offer its lists in digested form. You can try
reading the git mailing list via
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git,
http://marc.info/?l=git, or consider signing up for a webmail account.

j.