No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Bill Freeman]

The solutions that some to mind are:

   amanda
   tar bzip2 scp
   rsync

All require configuration.  A problem with rsync is that if you back
up the system after it has lost
or corrupted files, then the rsync copy no longer has those files or
good versions of those files
either.  It is possible to replace the scp step of the tar/bzip scheme
with rsync, allowing the tar
and bzip step to run on the machine receiving the backup instead of
your desktop, but you may
not have the ability to "run stuff" on a "network drive", even though
there's a computer there.

Another possibility is to use a revision control system like svn, git,
mercurial, with the repository
stored on the backup drive.  But such systems may not be comfortable
with all the kinds of
files you want to back up (images, movies, and sound files come to mind).

mondo is another possibility, but I don't think that it expects to run
in the background on a live
system, and may or may not have a means of saving to a network drive
rather than CD-R or
DVD-R.

Other people will have other ideas.  Maybe someone knows of a system
you don't have to
configure and understand.  But if you don't have to configure it, you
have to settle for what
someone else chose.

Bill

On 2/14/12, Ralph A. Mack <ralphmack at comcast.net> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I just had to replace my backup drive for my main development system here at
> the house and I replaced it with a 2 TB WD network drive. Now that all my
> systems can see it, I'd like to do reasonable backups for all the systems,
> including my Linux boxes. (With 2 TB, I'm not too concerned about running
> out of space. :) )
>
> I don't want to take a lot of time studying the problem or fiddling with a
> lot of options. I'd rather do my creative stuff than spend my life doing IT.
> (I switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu for a reason. :) ) Backup for me is a
> practical necessity rather than a life project, so I want something that
> just works, errs on the side of caution, doesn't require continuing
> attention and maintenance, etc. So I turned on Time Machine from my Mac.
> What can I use that will provide comparable simplicity for my Linux boxes?
> Do any of them also have a reasonable Windows port? (My witless Atom netbook
> is running Windows 7 Essentials and my Mac has a bootcamp partition...)
>
> Ralph
>
>
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