[Rear-users] Questions on handling

[Werner Flamme]

Schlomo Schapiro   [23.04.2008 20:55]:
> Hi Werner,
> 
> well, the documentation is somewhat lacking still, though I hoped that the 
> general part would be sufficient to cover your question (feel free to submit 
> better documentation :-))

Hi Schlomo,

I'd like to, given the case that I understand what I do :-)

> 
> Implementing support for another backup solution is fairly simple, took me 2-3 
> days each time.

The only client installed on the hosts is a Java client, and I do not
want to automate the restore here ;-) The time I need for restoring
manually compared to automated restore is - nearly the same...

> The backup methods REQUESTRESTORE and EXTERNAL are special because they don't 
> take anything into the rescue system but expect some "magic" to restore the data 
> when requested or allow specifying your own custom scripts. But it is always 
> better to write a support module for your backup software because that would 
> allow you to fully utilize the power of rear and also contribute your effort 
> back to the project.

For EXTERNAL, I saw this from /etc/rbme.conf, but what kind of magic
does REQUESTRESTORE expect? EXTERNAL allows to include user-written
scripts doing the work, initiated by rear (that is really great!), and
REQUESTRESTORE just says "Restore now!" and it's work is done, right? ;-)

> 
> One popular example for REQUESTRESTORE is having the backup done with rsync 
> (e.g. RBME) and then obviously the backup server has to push the data back to 
> the system (using rsync over ssh). If you are looking for a simple backup 
> solution besides NetBackup, do take a look at RBME as it simplifies the rsync 
> backup.

At the moment, I do not know why my parameters vanish...

In /etc/rbme.conf I have (amongst others)
RSYNC_SSH="ssh -i /root/.ssh/rbme-rz36-key"

In /usr/bin/rbme, I changed (~ line 110):
test -s "/etc/$ME.conf" && . "/etc/$ME.conf" && echo "/etc/$ME.conf
gelesen" > /root/rbme.log
env | grep -i rsync >> /root/rbme.log

In /root/rbme.log I see:
/etc/rbme.conf gelesen
RSYNC_RSH=ssh

Outside the script, RSYNC_RSH is unset.

> 
> Regards,
> Schlomo
> 
> PS: If you want to quickly test the workings of rear, simply use
> BACKUP=NETFS
> NETFS_URL=nfs://host/share/path
> and make sure your system can NFS mount that url. The SLAC demo was just the 
> same, the demo film on the website also shows this in detail.

Hm... At present, I do not have a system that is small enough to fit
into any of the NFS shares avalable to me :-( And virtual machines are
hardly accessible either, but with the EXTERNAL option I may gain a lot
- just a script that creates tarballs for the relevant directory trees,
puts them to a certain place and copies them away via rsync. To get them
back, same thing, other direction ;-)

I'm just feeling depressed because the SLAC demo was so nice, and my
tries aren't... ReaR can do it, but I can't :-(

Regards,
Werner

-- 
Werner Flamme, Abt. WKDV
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH - UFZ
Permoserstr. 15 - 04318 Leipzig
Tel.: (0341) 235-1921 - Fax (0341) 235-451921
http://www.ufz.de - eMail: werner.flamme at ufz.de