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NetBSD's Real-Time Network Backup

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the old-hardware-power dept.

jschauma writes "One of NetBSD's developers, der Mouse, was interviewed by DaemonNews about his real-time network backup system (originally presented at BSDCan 2005), where changes to your local filesystem are automatically propagated to a backup server. In his interview der Mouse tells about his idea, how it works, and of course, how cool it is."

7 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Correct me if I'm wrong by thedletterman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But hasn't Sun been doing this with Solaris for at least 3 years?

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    1. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong by operagost · · Score: 4, Interesting

      OpenVMS has been doing this for even longer using volume shadowing.

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  2. Neat. by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is definitely the way to go. With huge hard-disks that offer capacities beyond tape drives, it is less and less feasible to use traditionnal tape-based backup systems in many organizations, if only by the time taken by the frigging tape drive...

    Here is the idea behind the setup I am currently using: Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync.

    1. Re:Neat. by Lord+of+Ironhand · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I prefer Dirvish, and I highly recommend that people looking for a good harddisk-based backup system take a look at it. I've looked long and hard for a good backup system and this is the first that seems to fit the bill for me.

  3. Good idea, but there has to be a better way by TheFlyingGoat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This idea is really cool, but implementing it by putting hooks into each device driver seems overly complicated. It also doesn't sound like they're any sort of priority setting for this or any type of data filtering.

    Personally I'd like to see something like the MS filesystem in development that allows SQL calls to be run against it (not sure if there's any other filesystems that are similar). Query every 5 minutes for changed data that fits the backup parameters (within the system dir, the user's home dir, certain filetypes) and then transfer the data as the network isn't being used.

    That would achieve the same thing, but more flexibly and without affecting normal use.

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    1. Re:Good idea, but there has to be a better way by jcgf · · Score: 3, Interesting
      A hook into each driver does seem like a strange way to do this, you would think that it could be done once at a higher level.

      Query every 5 minutes for changed data that fits the backup parameters (within the system dir, the user's home dir, certain filetypes) and then transfer the data as the network isn't being used.

      Then you loose the realtimeness.

    2. Re:Good idea, but there has to be a better way by ivoras · · Score: 4, Interesting
      This idea is really cool, but implementing it by putting hooks into each device driver seems overly complicated.
      FreeBSD's GEOM is solving that: http://www.bsdcan.org/2004/papers/geom.pdf

      Also, there's "GEOM gate" on FreeBSD: http://garage.freebsd.pl/GEOM_Gate.pdf
      For other cool stuff with GEOM see here and here. See also this discussion thread about ggate's limits.

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