From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 8.0 \(1990.1\)) From: Anthony Sorace In-Reply-To: Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:04:59 -0500 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <9F47497D-BDA2-46E1-903C-20AD3E5FD486@9srv.net> References: To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] advice? fossil+venti (p9), vbackup+venti (p9p) vs. some other means of backup Topicbox-Message-UUID: 3625abb2-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > Does anybody rely on a backup scheme using, say, > vbackup+venti on linux? Does it work well, or would > you recomment other means of doing a backup? Not precisely what you're asking, but likely close enough experience to = be useful: When last I was responsible for a bunch of unix boxes, I was using venti = for backup. I started off using vbackup, but switched to something = vac-based pretty quickly. I realized there was a ton of data on there = that I didn't feel the need to keep backed up (the OS itself, but more = significantly nearly a TB of transcoded video (we kept the source backed = up)). Also, I don't think I could get at the vbackup images from Plan 9; = the vac ones work fine, with some oddities based on file system = differences. These were OS X systems, but I was just using stock p9p = stuff; it should run fine on linux. I was sending to a remote venti = running on Plan 9. Using vac instead of vbackup increases your recovery time (you have to = reinstall the OS & tools, and in my case we'd have to re-transcode the = video), but we had a warm spare and RAID to guard agains simple disk = failures; this was mostly for genuine disaster recovery (although being = able to mount and cd around my backup history from my Plan 9 workstation = was a huge benefit). I also ran something similar on my laptop. I've stopped using that = regularly in favor of Time Machine, but still use it as an occasional = one-off for disaster recovery (although it's not off-site). > I guess there are also people using fossil+venti on > p9. Are those happy? Yes, quite. Ever since someone (Richard Miller, I think) tracked down = that persistent snapshot hang bug, it's been great. Most of the = complaining about fossil's stability comes from outdated info. The = fossil+venti combo isn't the fastest option (Erik's kenfs kicks ass = there), but the tradeoffs work well for my needs. > I am looking for a sustainable means of backup, > mainly on linux, and am avaluating different options > (rdiff-backup, rsnapshot, dump/restore, rdup...) I would use this system again if I had unix servers I cared about. For = my MacBook, Time Machine gets the edge mostly because it's automatic. This is not quite the latest version, but you can take a look at = /n/sources/contrib/anothy/bin/rc/vacbak. You can also take a look at = .../anothy/lib/tet.(cron files xfiles) for examples of config files I = used on a system called tet. You're reminding me I've been meaning to come up with an off-site backup = plan for my system, which I haven't had in a few years...