linux shadow volume copy

[Red Squirrel]

I've been googling this, as I really love that feature in win2k3 and asked myself "Linux must have a way to do this!". I found a module for samba that actually emulates it, which is great for windows shares. I did not look at it more so not sure how easy/hard it is to setup.

Just wondering, is there another solution, that works for Linux in general (Ex: not just for samba shares). This would rock in a web hosting environment, or a development machine. Of course, you have to have the space for it but if it can be well configured that would not be an issue, like if I can tell it to ignore certain folders / file sizes etc.

 

[degibson]

http://www.google.com/search?h...Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh I already use rsync to do my incremental backups, I was just thinking more along the lines of something built right into the OS. Maybe a kernel module or something, then it would give a command like dirshadow where you see a list of files and previous dates, then again suppose I could do that with rsync too and just have a special web interface of some sort.

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Oh I already use rsync to do my incremental backups, I was just thinking more along the lines of something built right into the OS. Maybe a kernel module or something, then it would give a command like dirshadow where you see a list of files and previous dates, then again suppose I could do that with rsync too and just have a special web interface of some sort.

Building something like that into the OS is totally unnecessary. Its not built into windows, either -- its just a sophisticated application (hiding behind smoke-and-mirrors called 'services'). It seems like part of the OS because it has a GUI flavored like the OS.

Anyway, I digress. Try this instead:
http://www.google.com/search?h...tend+linux&btnG=Search

 

[Nothinman]

Scheduled snapshots could do that, it would be a little more work to recover because you'd have to mount the snapshot but it could work.

 

[Brazen]

lvm snapshots is what you are looking for. There is no pretty gui to click on a file and see all the previous versions though. You would have to mount the snapshots and browse to the file manually.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It's Hammer time!

Actually, isn't something like this one of the ideas behind btrfs?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Just looked up btrfs. It definably sounds neat. It's still in development, but looking forward to see how well it does once it's stable. Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

Guess the best solution is just rsync scripts.

Also, what about rdiffbackup, anyone use those? I've only slightly heard of them, but it sounds like a more advanced rsync.

 

[sourceninja]

You should also look at these Time Machine like tools for linux. Most of them are using rsync, only the simplify it.

timevault - http://www.howtoforge.com/snap...-timevault-ubuntu-7.10 and <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault</a></a>
flyback - http://code.google.com/p/flyback/
pdumpfs - http://0xcc.net/pdumpfs/index.html.en

maybe even backuppc - http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/info.html#screenShots

You could also use rdiff directly - http://handsonhowto.com/2007/timemachine4linux/

Also you could use a copy on write file system as listed above and in this link http://www.ext3cow.com/Welcome.html

 

[Nothinman]

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while. And other filesystems like XFS and reiserfs work just fine without any extra libraries, the fact that you have to jump through hoops to make RHEL or CentOS make them an option in the installer is that distro's fault. Every filesystem is selectable by default in the Debian installer.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while. And other filesystems like XFS and reiserfs work just fine without any extra libraries, the fact that you have to jump through hoops to make RHEL or CentOS make them an option in the installer is that distro's fault. Every filesystem is selectable by default in the Debian installer.

i was surprised when i was playing with centos last year that it didnt even *support* XFS until 5.1, and i found that out the hard way :|

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while.

Really? And here I thought zfs would have that distinction. If only Sun would release it under the gpl.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while. And other filesystems like XFS and reiserfs work just fine without any extra libraries, the fact that you have to jump through hoops to make RHEL or CentOS make them an option in the installer is that distro's fault. Every filesystem is selectable by default in the Debian installer.

i was surprised when i was playing with centos last year that it didnt even *support* XFS until 5.1, and i found that out the hard way :|

CentOS supports XFS in 5.1? That's a surprise since I don't think RedHat Enterprise Linux supports xfs yet. Unless you specifically need RHEL compatibility, you should be using a debian derived distro anyway 😀

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while.

Really? And here I thought zfs would have that distinction. If only Sun would release it under the gpl.

Or make it Free and release it under BSD. 😉

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Though I can't see it becoming too standard, even XFS and Raiser are hard to get without needing to install seperate libraries, while ext2/3 are chosable right from within the setup, and tools easily available.

As it stands right now I believe btrfs will become the new standard, but not for a while. And other filesystems like XFS and reiserfs work just fine without any extra libraries, the fact that you have to jump through hoops to make RHEL or CentOS make them an option in the installer is that distro's fault. Every filesystem is selectable by default in the Debian installer.

i was surprised when i was playing with centos last year that it didnt even *support* XFS until 5.1, and i found that out the hard way :|

CentOS supports XFS in 5.1?

yes but its not part of the default install even then, so install or update to 5.1, and *then* you can install xfs-progs and what not and finally use xfs.

I can play around with debian and find the help easy, but Im interested in system administration and Red Hat, not Debian, has a certification so I thought if I was interested enough in administration once after I played around a while, I could possibly prepare for that.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I used debian before but I found it lacking a lot on the server side commands such as "service, checkconfig" and so on. I don't know if this still holds true though, I should probably check out what it has to offer now given it's been a while. I do know it is more light weight then RH based distros. FC for example will use a couple gigs even on a minimal install and have a bigger foot print. I'm happy with CentOS as a server though, and that will probably be the main distro I will support whenever I code an app.

 

[Nothinman]

I used debian before but I found it lacking a lot on the server side commands such as "service, checkconfig" and so on

That's because those are RH commands, not "server side commands". And it looks like there's a chkconfig package and the service command is in the sysvconfig package, they're just not the standard Debian way of doing those things.