Offsite data backup

[maxbet (Massimo Bettini)]

**NethServer Version: 6.8
**Module: Backup

Our Nethserver installation has been working flawlessly for more than 6 months : not a single problem whatsoever.
A huge improvement from our previous system (SBS Server 2008)!!
It’s funny… I sort of miss rebooting the server after some major updates.

We are currently using Nethserver Backup module to backup our system to a FreeNAS server (HP Microserver Gen 8) exposing an NFS share. This has been working very well, with a weekly full backup and daily incremental save.

I am now planning to implement an off site backup (the FreeNAS system is in the same server room) but I do not want to alter the current backup setup as it is working well.
My first idea was to rsync the whole /var folder to an external USB disk, but it fail once tested it.

Any idea about a possible solution?

P.S. I recently upgraded my home internet connection to a full 100MB fiber, so I may consider to run the backup from home using my VPN access.

Regards

Massimo

[dnutan (Marc)]

@filippo_carletti is the man for this:

Backup-data-cloud

I hacked the backup-data script to add a second destination to store the backup remotely. The standard backup stores a full backup every Sunday on a local hard disk attached to an usb port, then make incremental backups every day. I added an always incremental backup to a remote linux server over ssh (no bandwidth to make a full backup). Now, every night, when backup-data runs, it will write to the usb disk first and then to the remote server. If one of the two backups fail, it notifies me wi…

[filippo_carletti]

@maxbet

My first idea was to rsync the whole /var folder to an external USB disk

I’d rsync /var/lib/nethserver.
Pay attention to format the usb stick using ext3.
You can rsync over ssh to a system in your house, it’s easier than to a usb stick.

[Stefano_Zamboni]

I’d work on freenas side, not on the NS one…

[maxbet (Massimo Bettini)]

Done.
After some initial struggle (the mounted USB disk would interfere with the Backup running at night…) I managed to rsync the whole /var/lib/nethserver.

Very fast and efficient.

Now I have an off-site backup : once a week I bring to the office the disk and I update it; than back home.

Massimo

[robb (Rob Bosch)]

Why not get an ‘unlimited’ cloud backup?

4 Cloud Backup Plans That Allow Unlimited Data

If you make sure your backups are encrypted, you could let the FreeNAS copy the backups to the cloud service.

[maxbet (Massimo Bettini)]

Rob,
not from China…

Internet connection to foreign websites is too unreliable over here.

Moreover I am quite old fashioned (and old…) : I trust things I can touch …

Massimo

[enzoturri (Vincenzo Turri)]

Hi @maxbet,
If you believe that your question has had a decisive response, marks solved the answer that you have been of help. good work

[maxbet (Massimo Bettini)]

Done.

In case it may help, here is what I did :

• Source : the whole /var/lib/nethserver/ folder

• Destination : external USB HD (2 TB)

The following are my notes on the procedure :

USB DISK PREPARATION (if not formatted yet)

• Double check the USB disk device name :

  lsblk -io KNAME,TYPE,SIZE,MODEL

• Create a Linux partition on the whole disk:

  echo “0,” | sfdisk /dev/sdc

• Create the filesystem on sdc1 partition with a label named “Dalmec” :

  mke2fs -v -t ext3 -T largefile4 -j /dev/sdc1 -L Dalmec

• Detach and reconnect the USB disk (physically or using the following command):

  blockdev --rereadpt /dev/sdc

DATA BACKUP

• Create mount point (directory) :

  cd /mnt
  mkdir backup-dalmec

• Mount USB disk :

  mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/backup-dalmec

• Launch backup

  rsync -av /var/lib/nethserver/ /mnt/backup-dalmec/

• Unmount USB disk (may need to wait for buffers to be flushed):

  umount /mnt/backup-dalmec

• Check that USB disk has been unmounted :

  mount

One word of warning : if the rsync process runs too long and overlaps with the backup process, the backup will fail. In normal conditions this is not a problem as rsync is quite fast, but it forced me to stagger the first backup in several steps/days.

I hope this may help others

Massimo

[enzoturri (Vincenzo Turri)]

@maxbet, thanks for your reply. Great job

[stephdl (Stéphane de Labrusse)]

just some feed for thoughts, only rsync the /var/lib/nethserver, might not be enough since some additional modules put a link in /etc/backup-data.d/ to save their data with the backup module.

[root@NS7DEVAllModules ~]# cat /etc/backup-data.d/*
/var/lib/nethserver/backup/duplicity/
/var/lib/nethserver/db
/var/www/bandwidthd/stats.db
/var/lib/nethserver/secrets
/root
/var/lib/nethserver
/var/lib/collectd
/var/spool/hylafax/log/seqf
/var/spool/hylafax/sendq/seqf
/var/spool/hylafax/docq/seqf
/var/spool/hylafax/recvq/seqf
/var/lightsquid
/var/lib/nethserver/webtop/logs
/var/www/html/nextcloud/config/config.php

so if you want a full backup solution, these paths must be saved also.

Therefore a solution like this should be better, supposed that you have a linux client at your home with a port 22 opened in your home firewall

rsync -avzR $(cat /etc/backup-data.d/*) lsd@YourIP:/home/lsd/toto

the -R rsync option save the full path, it will ease your restoration

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

Nice shot! Would you mind writing down some notes for us?

@robb

Why not get an ‘unlimited’ cloud backup?7 Free Online Fax Services

Interesting, did you test one of them with linux?

[robb (Rob Bosch)]

Not yet, but I did test a provider in .nl that gives 1TB owncloud storage for free. It is accessible directly through webdav, so if you mount the webdav location and do a backup to the mounted webdav directory, you have an offsite backup. In such I case I use duplicity for backup since it can create encrypted backups. I wouldn’t want to store my offsite backups unencrypted.