[K12OSN] Re: [Ltsp-discuss] how to backup /home ?

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-04-05 at 14:00, Krsnendu Dasa wrote:
> >The config files on SME server are all built by perl scripts
> >using templates and a database managed through a web server.
> >That's great if you want to do exactly what someone else already
> >built templates to do, but not so good if you are adding something
> >new.  I'd recommend either starting from the Centos-based version
> >of k12ltsp which will be very familiar but has a longer expected
> >life, or ubuntu which has the advantage of an available
> >pre-configured packaged (but it's not that hard to do yourself).
> >
> 
> Do you mean that if I install ubuntu it already has backuppc installed?

No, but it is packaged so you just 'apt-get install backkuppc' to
load it.  I don't think anyone has packaged an RPM for fedora
or Centos yet.  But, it doesn't make that much difference.  The
only hard part is configuring the things to back up and setting
up the ssh keys which you have to do anyway.

> Our needs are not large we have 1 K12ltsp/file  server with less than 40 
> active users plus 3 teacher laptops, 1 admin computer.
> 
> Because backups are generally done at night and after the initial 
> complete backup the incremental backups shouldn't be to big I was 
> thinking of using IDE hard drives (200GB) on an old PII 350.

That might work, but I'd recommend a faster processor because there
is quite a bit of CPU work in compression and duplicate matching.
Newer IDE drives are OK, but you'll want to drop in a newer IDE
controller card if you use an old PC.  A linux pc used for something
else in the daytime would be OK since the backups mostly run at
night.

> To use RAID 
> 1 would I need to get a RAID card or something? Would it be necessary? I 
> also have heaps of 6 GB HDs (removed from PXE booting clients) that I 
> don't know what to do with. Are they any use for anything?

RAID1 (mirroring) in software is OK, but you want the drives
involved to be on separate controllers (the cheap cards will
have two controllers, so just put the drives on different cables).

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   les at futuresource.com