Re: [9fans] Venti off-site backups

[David du Colombier <0intro@gmail.com>]

> I see several threads about how people are cloning their Venti
> servers to remote Venti servers as a means of creating a backup.

Personally, I use three different ways of replicating the
content of my Venti file servers.

1. The first method is to use venti/mirrorarenas to replicate
the content of a Venti arena partition to another hard disk.

venti/mirrorarenas /dev/sdE0/arenas /dev/sdE1/arenas

This method requires two hard disks and two identical arena partitions.

2. The second method is to copy blocks from a Venti arena partition
to a Venti server running on another machine, accessed through the
local network.

You'll find an example of script using this method here:

http://9legacy.org/www.9legacy.org/9legacy/tools/backup/readwrite

This method requires another machine running Venti. The partition
layout could be different and the Venti servers could be running
on different operating systems.

3. The third method is to copy blocks from a Venti arena partition
to arena files, using venti/rdarena. Then you can copy the arena files
to external media like Blu-ray discs or hard disks.
The restoration is done to a running Venti using venti/wrarena.

You'll find backup and restore script examples here:

http://9legacy.org/www.9legacy.org/9legacy/tools/backup/read
http://9legacy.org/www.9legacy.org/9legacy/tools/backup/write

This method require external media to store the arena files.

For example, I use all these three methods to replicate the data
of my main file server. Consequently, the data are replicated on:

 - two machines (automatically)
 - two hard disks of each machine (automatically)
 - some external hard disks (manually)

--
David du Colombier