[RSync] Re: How to delete files older than X on backup during sync?

Henri S henri at stmargarets.school.nz
Tue Nov 11 00:42:21 GMT 2008


>LBackup is not intended for large scale deployment, unless used in
>combination with some sort of file system management tool.

If you are backing up up client machines, chances are that their
configuration will be changing in the near future. In addition, there are
may be different operating systems or different operating system versions
on these machines.

You may certainly use LBackup to backup these machines. However, another
tool may be better suited to the job.

As workstations, these machines will most likely get moved around,
re-imaged swapped between people and upgraded on a very regular basis. If
this is the case then the maintenance of the backups for these
workstations without any kind of automated system will result in great
deal of work on your part. 

As such, if you decide to use LBackup for the backup of client machines, I
would strongly recommend some sort of centralized file system management
system already be place and tested on these machines. This will help you
deal with the modified versions of rsync on all of these machines. In
addition, some machines may require special configuration such as privacy
restrictions. 

LBackup is not currently designed to deal with client backups at this
scale without assistance from some other scripts or tools. As such, I
would strongly recommend that if you are going to use LBackup for the
backup of 200 client machines, that you have some sort of file management
system or other automated deployment system in place on these machines
before you start. Otherwise, you will be asking for a wold of pain, with
regards the maintenance of such a solution. In addition, LBackup is not
yet very good at dealing with clients, which are constantly changing
between the states available and ready for backup and not available for
backup. Think about, a laptop which moves around the world and may be
behind a firewall. Remote backup of such a laptop is something which is
under development but it not anywhere near ready. 

The BackupPC project is aimed at the backup of workstations. As such, I
would suggest you have a look at this project and see if that will meet
your client backup requirements. You could even use rsync to centralize
the data.

Once the data has been pulled together by BackupPC or some other tools,
you could then effectively use  a tool like LBackup to move the data to a
remote location.

I hope this clarifies the statement on the web page. 

If you decided to write some sort of system to assist with the management
and deployment of LBackup to workstations and/or roaming clients then
please let me know, as I would be most interested.

Thanks.


PS : Sorry if this is not the right place for the discussion of this topic.




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