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Using Linux for Windows HD Snapshots?

Posted by Cliff on from the drive-imaging-but-not-with-a-camera dept.

DBordello asks: "Our company is currently backing up weekly to tape. I would like to begin taking snapshots of our NT 4.0 server. My first thought was a Linux box running an Open Source solution. My research shows that most Open Source applications to take snapshots assume that the backup target is Linux based. This presents a problem with mounting the NT 4.0 server. While I could mount the share with Samba, all of the backup applications do not provide options to backup a local mount. What do you guys use to snapshot your Windows network?"

10 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. hdup my friend by ptaff · · Score: 5, Informative

    hdup should do the job. Simple, does monthly/weekly/daily and compression + encryption if you wish.

    Mount your NT filesystem via samba, specify your mounted directories to backup, put a crontab entry, that should be it.

    I use it daily to store a backup file on a the same host as the filesystem backuped - then fetching it using rsync with another machine for archival purposes.

    Won't keep NT permissions automatically, you should backup relevant permission files for Windows (anybody knows what they are?)

  2. Amanda or SMBTAR by fdragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know how far you have researched this, but if you are running RedHat Linux 7.x, 8.0, or 9 you already have a solution with Amanda.

    Backup of Microsoft Windows machines happens via Samba shares of course, and it will run in agent or agentless mode.

    Agent mode of course gives you things like bandwidth throttling and compression of the network bandwidth usage. Agentless mode and you can back up anything you can mount.

    Typically you can have it use the smbtar(1) command (from Samba) to have it backup your windows machine.

    --
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  3. One word: dd. by Mensa+Babe · · Score: 4, Informative

    With dd you can make a "snap shot" of any imaginable partition. No need to mount it. Just write dd if=/dev/hdc10 of=/root/backups/hdc10-`date -Is` or something similar, and it's done. I wish you good luck.

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    1. Re:One word: dd. by djcapelis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You have all the empty space still taking up room though. And this may be more for versioning and others where compression and other issues would be highly important. Especially if your trying to store 3 different copies of a few of these things, you don't want the extra room taken up by the empty space.

      All I have to say on the subject of your choice of a screename is that people smart enough to be in mensa should be smart enough to not be in mensa.

      --
      I touch computers in naughty places
  4. Re:NTFS support already in Linux by mcgroarty · · Score: 4, Informative
    Reading NTFS by direct mount, you're going to lose ACLs, system/hidden attributes, encrypted files, and I don't know that Linux supports NT file compression either. Over the net, ACLs and NTFS file attributes are still going away.

    Really, it's best to use a Windows backup utility, or to use dd or similar to back up a binary image of the partition(s) on the machine itself.

    This is one of those places where it's better not to save a few bucks (unless you save those bucks by first migrating that server to a free OS).

  5. No. by Mensa+Babe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unfortunately, this is only useful if the replacement hard drive is identical to the original. This often isn't the case. :-/

    No. It just means that you have to make a partition of at least the same size on the new hard drive, as on the old one. The new hard drives are usually larger, so it's not a problem at all. First use dd to back up the partition and record it on a new hard drive using fdisk (or cfdisk if yu cannot use a simple CLItool) first to make a new partition of the same type and size, and then dd again to write the actual data. It's just that simple.

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  6. Re:Strom Thurmond, Senator, dead at 100 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You could at least try to be on topic, you know. Saying something like, use dd and your hard drive images will last as long as Strom Thurmond. Or, you need to keep your Windows backups segregated from your Linux backups, just like Strom Thurmond would have done. C'mon, try it, it's fun.

  7. Ghost 4 Unix? by CliffH · · Score: 4, Informative


    Not that I've used it extensively yet (maybe someone else has) but Ghost 4 Unix (g4u) will do a bit for bit copy just like Ghost for Windows does, difference being that it is freeware and backs up to any ftp server with the appropriate credentials added. I think I'll go ahead and try it a little more this weekend actually.


    Here is a link to g4u.


    Cliff



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  8. BackupPC by warmcat · · Score: 4, Informative

    BackupPC.

  9. Partimage by ggeens · · Score: 4, Informative

    Partimage makes an "intelligent" copy of a partition. I.e., it only copies the sectors that actually contain data. This gives a smaller backup than a full copy of the disk.

    It can read NTFS partitions, and it can connect to a remote server to store the file.

    They even provide bootable disk images, so you can use it without installing Linux on the NT machine.

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