Backup software

[nkjha]

Hi all of you,

I have a small Linux network around 35 machine .I plan for Backup server .
I searched on google for free open source Backup software then I found following 2 .
(i)Amanda
(ii)Bacula

Please suggest me which one is best for my network and if you know about another
one then please suggest me the name .

Thanks for your ideas
Nkjha

[Irithori]

I used to work with amanda on a 200+ machine park.
Mixed OSes: solaris 9/10, many *BSDs, centos 4 and 5, windows server 200 and upwards.

Amanda does work of course.
And it´s more in the philosophy of unix, as in: one tool for one job.
So it utilizes, tar, dump, etc.
Also, the automatic balance feature is *really* nice.

On the bad side:
I found myself tracking down some strange issues each other day, just because
- nodump flag was set (or not)
- amanda hanging for unknown reasons
- amanda reacts quite strange to dns resolves: short hostname vs fqdn.
Even if both are resolvable and connect to the same machine, DO NOT mix them up
- no windows support for the non-commercial version


I now have bacula 5 on a 500+ machine park.
centos 5, freebsd 7, windows server 2008.
Backup maintenance time is reduced greatly.
In fact, client config is zero, apart from the initial install + config file for the client. (Which -in my case- is fully automated via cfengine)
Sometimes there is need to reschedule or re-define some jobs, but this I consider normal operation.
Also, the pre- and post- backup scripts are handy,
as is the fact, that bacula can utilize shadowcopy on windows platforms.

The only thing I really miss is the automatic balancing.
And, in contrast to amanda, that produces standard tar.gz:
You *really* want to take good care of that bacula backend database :P


So, between these two, I would go for bacula

[SkipDaShu]

If you are backing up to disk, not tape, you might want to look at BackupPC also. It has some neat space saving techniques for otherwise duplicate backups of = files.

[gekkos]

Hi

We are using BackupPC for more than 2 years now and we never had an issue with.
We backup around 50 Desktops (Windows and Linux) and about 50 Servers (Windows and Linux).
Its very easy and flexible to configure and it takes incredible low disk space because of the way it deals with duplicated files.

[SkipDaShu]

Sorry guys, didn't know I was in a Fedora forum... me be a Debian/Ubuntu boy... but shouldn't make any diff for the 3 packages discussed so far. All 3 are in the Debian repositories and I'd assume same for RH/F.

[nkjha]

Hi all of you

Thanks for your reply .

Nkjha

[jippie]

I've been using dirvish for ages and, although it is very basic and has no neat graphical interface, I am totally happy with it because it just does it's job.
Dirvish is basically a shell around rsync and runs from crontab. The big advantage is that it uses a disk based storage and only copies files that have changed since the previous backup.

[jippie]

About windows? I wrote a wiki page on the dirvish website about how to backup a Windows PC. It requires the use of a (open source) rsync and sshd tools on the Windows PC.