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Feature: Linux
Linux backup for the rest of us
By Lee Schlesinger
on
February 23, 2004 (8:00:00 AM)
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Enterprise Linux shops have plenty of good options for client/server backup, including Storix, Arkeia, and Computer Associates' BrightStor ARCserve. But what's available for a small businessperson running a peer-to-peer network? I have yet to find the equivalent of my favorite Windows backup software, Stomp's BackUp MyPC. The closest I've come -- and it's not close at all -- is an application called Konserve. It's not fully baked yet, but it's better than nothing.
As you might guess from the name, Konserve runs under KDE. The application has been in development for more than a year and a half, and the current version 0.10.1 was released just last month.
Konserve lacks a main window; it's designed to run in the system tray. To change its configuration, you click on the Konserve icon. That brings up a menu that includes a Wizard, which helps clueless users set up backup jobs, and Preferences, which lets you add, delete, configure, and activate jobs. Once you have jobs, their names show up at the top of the tray icon menu, and clicking on one activates it immediately.
Konserve's configuration options are simple. You specify a source URL, a destination URL, and a backup interval, which can be any number of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. When you're happy with what you have, you click a field to make the profile active and the Apply button to make the changes permanent.
Note that the source and destination are URLs, which means you can specify not only directories and files, but FTP sites as well. I had some trouble with that option, however. My remote FTP server, like any prudent server to which users can write files, requires you to specify a username and password. Konserve uses an anonymous FTP connection, so it failed to complete a job with an FTP destination. Even worse, it failed to tell me it failed. It was more communicative when I tried to create a backup in a local directory to which I had no write privileges; in that case, it reported its failure.
When activated, either manually or when its scheduled time comes, Konserve begins making your hard drive whir. When it stops, you'll find an archive file in the destination you specified.
The actual backup process worked well for me. I backed up my 477MB home directory, and the software compressed it down to a 342MB GZipped tar archive in just a few minutes.
So Konserve works, but it lacks any refinements that might make it more useful than a
Still, Konserve works. I'm happy to have my home directory protected now, because I know I'm going to do something stupid someday. (Insert obvious comment here.)
Fun fact: "Konserve" means "can" in German, the native language of the program's lead developer, Florian Simnacher. Simnacher has adopted a modified Campbell's soup can as the product's logo.
Konserve lacks a main window; it's designed to run in the system tray. To change its configuration, you click on the Konserve icon. That brings up a menu that includes a Wizard, which helps clueless users set up backup jobs, and Preferences, which lets you add, delete, configure, and activate jobs. Once you have jobs, their names show up at the top of the tray icon menu, and clicking on one activates it immediately.
Konserve's configuration options are simple. You specify a source URL, a destination URL, and a backup interval, which can be any number of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. When you're happy with what you have, you click a field to make the profile active and the Apply button to make the changes permanent.
Note that the source and destination are URLs, which means you can specify not only directories and files, but FTP sites as well. I had some trouble with that option, however. My remote FTP server, like any prudent server to which users can write files, requires you to specify a username and password. Konserve uses an anonymous FTP connection, so it failed to complete a job with an FTP destination. Even worse, it failed to tell me it failed. It was more communicative when I tried to create a backup in a local directory to which I had no write privileges; in that case, it reported its failure.
When activated, either manually or when its scheduled time comes, Konserve begins making your hard drive whir. When it stops, you'll find an archive file in the destination you specified.
The actual backup process worked well for me. I backed up my 477MB home directory, and the software compressed it down to a 342MB GZipped tar archive in just a few minutes.
So Konserve works, but it lacks any refinements that might make it more useful than a
tar command in a crontab file. For instance, there's no option to choose full, incremental, or differential backups -- full is your only choice. You can't pick specific directories or files to include or exclude. Once in progress, you can't interrupt a backup job. Konserve provides no log file of what it has done. Restore options are non-existent; your only choice is to restore the entire archive, which is annoying when you only need a single file you deleted by accident. When restoring archives Konserve won't overwrite files in the restore location -- you have to remove or rename the original source location.
Still, Konserve works. I'm happy to have my home directory protected now, because I know I'm going to do something stupid someday. (Insert obvious comment here.)
Fun fact: "Konserve" means "can" in German, the native language of the program's lead developer, Florian Simnacher. Simnacher has adopted a modified Campbell's soup can as the product's logo.
Comments
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Works quite well in my testing. Does client/server backup also. A lot more cost effective.
I use tapeware for all my backup solutions. It is extremely scalable and runs on many dif platforms.
rsync can do this in a single line AND it supports SSH for secure off-site backups. It supports incremental backups as well.
Two lines of rsync will get you two-way syncronization with a remote directory.
Put these same two lines in a cronjob on multiple machines and you have a very nice system for backups and syncronization of files between your desktop and laptop! It all happens in the background. I love it!
# pull down changed files
rsync -rptgouz -e ssh user@hostname.com:Documents<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home/user
# push up changed files
rsync -rptgouz -e ssh<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home/user/Documents user@hostname.com:
(Note: you will have to create the apropriate identities for SSH to have it work without prompting for a password)
Two lines of rsync will get you two-way syncronization with a remote directory.
Put these same two lines in a cronjob on multiple machines and you have a very nice system for backups and syncronization of files between your desktop and laptop! It all happens in the background. I love it!
# pull down changed files
rsync -rptgouz -e ssh user@hostname.com:Documents<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home/user
# push up changed files
rsync -rptgouz -e ssh<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home/user/Documents user@hostname.com:
(Note: you will have to create the apropriate identities for SSH to have it work without prompting for a password)
Arkeia Light is available for free for one linux server and up to two desktop machines.
This is something I've been curious about for awhile now. I set up a program called Tivoli on some Linux boxes before which worked very well. I believe it was a commercial system. A "Tivoli server" that ran on a separate computer was used to hold the files. A daemon ran on the Linux box and connected to it using some proprietary (I assume) protocol. Incremental backups were done on a daily basis, but I'm pretty sure that you could set it up to run as often as you like. A graphical client could be used to restore things, and it was all very simple, quick, and reliable. That backup system was operated by a state university, though, and I'm sure it was more than a couple of dollars for the software and server. For my own personal use, I would like to find something simple to use to back everything on my system up. I've found myself doing things manually, but a daily incremental backup would definitely be nice.
First, a piece of advice that will probably overcome the problem you were having with FTP. The username and password can be encoded into the URL itself like this:
ftp://username:password@server/path/file.ext
Since the program you were talking about was written using QT, chances are it will support this so you should try it and let everyone know if it works.
Second, I would like to hear about more things that can be used! It looks like rsync works well, especially if it can use SSH to transfer things. I'll have to look at how incremental backups are done with it. It could be that a good graphical rsync client is all you really need after all. Either way, I would like to hear about more options. If it turns out that there really isn't anything really good out there, maybe I'll write something myself.
First, a piece of advice that will probably overcome the problem you were having with FTP. The username and password can be encoded into the URL itself like this:
ftp://username:password@server/path/file.ext
Since the program you were talking about was written using QT, chances are it will support this so you should try it and let everyone know if it works.
Second, I would like to hear about more things that can be used! It looks like rsync works well, especially if it can use SSH to transfer things. I'll have to look at how incremental backups are done with it. It could be that a good graphical rsync client is all you really need after all. Either way, I would like to hear about more options. If it turns out that there really isn't anything really good out there, maybe I'll write something myself.
Well, It Can't Do Much, Can It?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 24, 2004 04:34 AMI'd look into DAR (Disk ARchive) which is a full backup system which supports tape and CDR/RW and allows for the recovery of damaged archives using PAR files - a critical feature most backup "solutions" forget about: the unreliability of media. The only quibble I have about DAR is that it uses its own archive format instead of standard ones. Still, compared to the minimalist Konserver, it's definitely better. For newbies, however, it might be a bit hard to use.
DAR can be found here: http://dar.linux.free.fr/
Another alternative is SitBack which can be found here: http://www.mrbean.dk/index.php?menu=projects&subm<nobr>e<wbr></nobr> nu=sitback This is perhaps more useful for the small business. You configure a simple config file to specify what and how you want to backup and it does it. Quite a few options available.
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