Live DB backups with rsync?

Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de
Tue Jan 14 19:59:17 EST 2003


On Tue, 2003-01-14 15:44:26 -0400, Steve Mallett <spaceman at nbnet.nb.ca>
wrote in message <96CCDE1A-27F8-11D7-AAAB-000393D8DD4A at nbnet.nb.ca>:
> Is it possible to do live backups of a running DB with rsync???
> 
> I was just talking to livevault.com & they (only on win boxes) say they 
> can grab changes from a client's live DB & sync them remotely.
> 
> It sounded like BS to me, but I'm neither a DB guy or sync'ing expert.

I think that's BS (or to name it for non-natice english speakers: bull
shit:-). Even if you had somethink like LVM to take a snapshot, the
database will be in some inconsistent state. There are only two (well,
three) sane ways of backing up a DB:

	- Shutdown, then take a backup (or take a LVM snapshot and
	  restart immediately afterwards).
	- Use some backup functionality the database server itself
	  offers
	- Use a combination of both - some DB servers are IIRC capable
	  of not touching some primary DB files/storage areas for some
	  time but collecting any changes outside

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw at lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur
    fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet!
   Shell Script APT-Proxy: http://lug-owl.de/~jbglaw/software/ap2/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.samba.org/archive/rsync/attachments/20030114/aa9f3608/attachment.bin


More information about the rsync mailing list