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

Theodore Papadopoulo Theodore.Papadopoulo at sophia.inria.fr
Wed Sep 15 19:30:26 UTC 2004


otaylor at redhat.com said:
> Well, a bigger problem with rsync is that in many cases, the listing
> files part is the biggest time sync. And if that gets interrupted, you
> start from the beginning. (*)

Maybe I'm incorrect, but this all the more true when rsync is doing 
checksums. Remove the --checksum from the command line and the 
listing files starts to be negligible (at least when lots of files 
are changed).

> So, starting a backup via wireless/vpn when you open your laptop for 5
> minutes at the coffee shop doesn't usually make sense.

Rigt, but it would make a lot of sense of letting the user decides.
There are two things needed:

When a backup started, the popup displayed should show that a backup 
is in progress and ask for what to decide (reboot later or postpone 
the backup). This should allow 

At connexion time, let gdm have an option "no backup for this 
session" and if the computer is connected on a given network for the 
first time, prompt the user with a choice:

      - never backup on this network.
      - always backup on this network [ optionnaly throught a VPN].
      - always ask me for this network.

That should pretty much cover all the situations, at least for 
laptops. For workstations, basically all this is not necessary IMHO 
(configure everything at installation time).

One important feature is that a backup should always be interruptible
leaving the computer in a coherent state. Another question is who 
should initiate the backup. Should it be the laptop/workstation, or 
should it be the network server holding the backup (which makes sense 
to avoid congestion when everyone is connecting its laptop on the 
network in the morning).

I have heard about dirvish for doing such server initiated backups.
Anyone has experience with it ?

	Theo.
 

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Theodore Papadopoulo
Email: Theodore.Papadopoulo at sophia.inria.fr Tel: (33) 04 92 38 76 01
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