Simplest script to backup many Linux servers

[Dave Dykstra]

The only thing you might be able to improve is to split it up into a
small number of separate runs, perhaps based on the top level directory
name.  That may or may not improve your overall time: the reason it might
improve time is that rsync uses up some memory for every file in a run that
it considers; if you are running low on real memory and end up swapping,
that could slow you down considerably.

- Dave Dykstra

On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 04:45:51PM -0700, Kerry Cox wrote:
> Okay, I've been lurking on this list for several weeks and have finally
> gotten rsync to work well when transferring files from one box to
> another. It is really great for passing lots of files from one machine
> to another, i.e. ripped MP3 to my home Linux machine, as one example.
> Now I am ready to take the next big step. 
> I have a large 1.5 terabyte server from Raidzone that I have NFS mounted
> on my main backup Linux machine. The backup machine is running Red Hat
> 7.2 with the latest rsync RPM version they recommend, rsync-2.4.6-10. 
> Normally, I use dump/restore to backup all 30+ Linux machines here to
> tape. I'd rather use rsync to move everything or just the important
> files on each server to the mounted Raidbackup machine.
> My questions is, what is the best way to do this? or what would be the
> simplest script. I tried the following script; 
> 
> # Backup all partitions and files 
> #!/bin/sh
> rsync -av * 192.168.10.10:/export3/mailworks.ksl.com/
> 
> but it seems to hang quite a bit as it generates the necessary list. I
> have created directories for each server name in the /export3/ directory
> and to a limited extent it works. But it seems to require some more
> tweaking and I'm rather at a loss.
> I can backup the contents of an individual user's directory with no
> problem, but I'd like to back it all up or rather mirror the entire
> machine on the raidzone backup box.
> Here is how I have it mounted.
> 
> [root at backup mailworks.ksl.com]# df -h
> Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> 64.147.130.xx:/home/ksl
>                       1.2T  1.1G  1.1T   1% /export3
> 
> Can anyone suggest a better script for copying things over? or for
> improving my method of running rsync?
> Thanks much.
> Kerry
> 
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