Homedir backup (was Re: "Stateless Linux" project)

Bryan K. Wright bryan at ayesha.phys.Virginia.EDU
Wed Sep 15 17:24:51 UTC 2004


otaylor at redhat.com said:
> The question in my mind is:
>  If you never have a high bandwidth connection to the backup server,
>  does the automatic homedir backup concept make sense? 

	It may make sense with something like rsync, using its
--partial and --compare-dest options.  See the following from the
rsync documentation:

       --compare-dest=DIR
              This option instructs rsync to use DIR on the  des­
              tination machine as an additional directory to com­
              pare destination files against when doing transfers
              if  the files are missing in the destination direc­
              tory.  This is useful for doing transfers to a  new
              destination  while  leaving  existing files intact,
              and then doing a flash-cutover when all files  have
              been  successfully transferred (for example by mov­
              ing directories around and removing the old  direc­
              tory,   although  this  skips  files  that  haven´t
              changed;  see  also  --link-dest).    This   option
              increases  the usefulness of --partial because par­
              tially transferred files will  remain  in  the  new
              temporary  destination  until they have a chance to
              be completed.  If DIR is a  relative  path,  it  is
              relative to the destination directory.

You could use these features to synchronize files as much as possible
(even partial file transfers) over a slow link, without damaging the
"last known good" version.  When a complete, newer version has been 
trasferred, it can be dropped in place of the previous "known good" 
version.

						Bryan

-- 
===============================================================================
Bryan Wright                |"If you take cranberries and stew them like 
Physics Department          | applesauce, they taste much more like prunes 
University of Virginia      | than rhubarb does."  --  Groucho 
Charlottesville, VA  22901  |			
(434) 924-7218              |         bryan at virginia.edu
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