6 ms·

Well, sorry about your loss. Then again, please understand that NO, you didn't have a backup. What you had was a single copy (probably a simple rsync, am I rig

by antx 10y ago

Well, sorry about your loss. Then again, please understand that NO, you didn't have a backup. What you had was a single copy (probably a simple rsync, am I right?)... that is worth nothing in case of corruption or voluntary mischief. Learn from your mistakes. Either use a solution that has a retention policy, or don't do backups at all.

onli 10y ago
That is not the lesson here. It is that a backup should not backup the encrypted data, but the unencrypted data, and have its own encryption. A simple rsync based bashscript can be fine for that, though I'd use borg.
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  How do you decrypt the data if it was encrypted client-side by multiple keys?
  - onli 10y ago
    Every client would need to make its own backups, automatically. In such a situation it would be probably best to have two backups, those plus a backup of the encrypted data for the clients that fail to do the backups on their own. But you raise a good point: That's difficult to do.
- baldfat 10y ago
  Having 2 local copies with local monthly backup for a year and an off site backup (CrashPlan) is the secret. CrashPlan can go back in time for issues like this. As a Systems Librarian I did the daily (31 days worth), weekly (52 weeks worth), monthly (48 months worth) back ups with 131 tapes was a pain but it always paid off. I just had three machines and needed to go to my tapes once a day.
  - onli 10y ago
    That sounds like a lot. Simple because it sounds also interesting: Why did you have to use your tapes each day? Unreliable filesystem?
    - the-dude 10y ago
      To move them offsite presumably.
    - baldfat 10y ago
      It was a library with 500,000 items being used all the time. I had Librarians who were adding and purging our collection everyday full time and students and faculty checking in and out books etc. all the times. Insider information all the Library Management Systems are totally broken and garbage (Open Source Evergreen is doing things better). I was required to reboot my Windows Server (Purchased before I was hired) everyday. I was told this was totally acceptable. The Oracle DB was solid but the rest of the stack was total and complete garbage that cost over $125,000 and service contracts of $30,000. Edit: Off Site aka IT Office Fireproof Case was my monthly and previous weeks. Once a week I walked them over. In the library in a fire case were the daily, and the last week. Tape was it was 2007.
tomc1985 10y ago
So, what, everyone is cool with owncloud pushing encryption-breaking updates? What the fuck is that about? The way apologists step up to the defense of stuff like this is appalling. The 'hard' stuff like this is supposed to be dealt with before the public release. Just because one has a backup doesn't mean that other programmers should force them to rely on it (whether they intended to or not... the point is that this kind of thing should never happen) I am beginning to feel like we should start figuratively burning people at the stake for advertently or inadvertently destroying other peoples' data -- it is a sin about as cardinal as they get; and it seems many programmers are clearly not very scared of such an outcome. Wiping/bricking/rendering inaccessible your customers' data should be causing people to shit bricks, not go on the defensive. Normals HATE technology bullshit like this. They just want it to work. Failures like these make the entire field look bad.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I don't think I've seen anyone say owncloud is not responsible. Yes, they fucked up, and royally. But in the end, you can't trust them to not fuck up. You have to trust that they will make a mistake, so be prepared for it. Doing backups right is just really hard.
  - tomc1985 10y ago
    Maybe, but at the time of writing many of the responses here felt like the comment I originally replied to -- splitting hairs over pedantics and blaming the user for not testing his backups well enough. I still feel very strongly that he shouldn't have to
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > I still feel very strongly that he shouldn't have to As nice as that idea is, I don't think we have the tech yet to fully trust someone else with your data. You have to test it out that your backups work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling snake-oil at best.
  - mcherm 10y ago

by antx 10y ago

onli 10y ago

That is not the lesson here. It is that a backup should not backup the encrypted data, but the unencrypted data, and have its own encryption. A simple rsync based bashscript can be fine for that, though I'd use borg.

jjnoakes 10y ago
How do you decrypt the data if it was encrypted client-side by multiple keys?
- onli 10y ago
  Every client would need to make its own backups, automatically. In such a situation it would be probably best to have two backups, those plus a backup of the encrypted data for the clients that fail to do the backups on their own. But you raise a good point: That's difficult to do.
baldfat 10y ago
Having 2 local copies with local monthly backup for a year and an off site backup (CrashPlan) is the secret. CrashPlan can go back in time for issues like this. As a Systems Librarian I did the daily (31 days worth), weekly (52 weeks worth), monthly (48 months worth) back ups with 131 tapes was a pain but it always paid off. I just had three machines and needed to go to my tapes once a day.
- onli 10y ago
  That sounds like a lot. Simple because it sounds also interesting: Why did you have to use your tapes each day? Unreliable filesystem?
  - the-dude 10y ago
    To move them offsite presumably.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    It was a library with 500,000 items being used all the time. I had Librarians who were adding and purging our collection everyday full time and students and faculty checking in and out books etc. all the times. Insider information all the Library Management Systems are totally broken and garbage (Open Source Evergreen is doing things better). I was required to reboot my Windows Server (Purchased before I was hired) everyday. I was told this was totally acceptable. The Oracle DB was solid but the rest of the stack was total and complete garbage that cost over $125,000 and service contracts of $30,000. Edit: Off Site aka IT Office Fireproof Case was my monthly and previous weeks. Once a week I walked them over. In the library in a fire case were the daily, and the last week. Tape was it was 2007.

tomc1985 10y ago

So, what, everyone is cool with owncloud pushing encryption-breaking updates? What the fuck is that about? The way apologists step up to the defense of stuff like this is appalling. The 'hard' stuff like this is supposed to be dealt with before the public release. Just because one has a backup doesn't mean that other programmers should force them to rely on it (whether they intended to or not... the point is that this kind of thing should never happen) I am beginning to feel like we should start figuratively burning people at the stake for advertently or inadvertently destroying other peoples' data -- it is a sin about as cardinal as they get; and it seems many programmers are clearly not very scared of such an outcome. Wiping/bricking/rendering inaccessible your customers' data should be causing people to shit bricks, not go on the defensive. Normals HATE technology bullshit like this. They just want it to work. Failures like these make the entire field look bad.

CaptSpify 10y ago
I don't think I've seen anyone say owncloud is not responsible. Yes, they fucked up, and royally. But in the end, you can't trust them to not fuck up. You have to trust that they will make a mistake, so be prepared for it. Doing backups right is just really hard.
- tomc1985 10y ago
  Maybe, but at the time of writing many of the responses here felt like the comment I originally replied to -- splitting hairs over pedantics and blaming the user for not testing his backups well enough. I still feel very strongly that he shouldn't have to
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    > I still feel very strongly that he shouldn't have to As nice as that idea is, I don't think we have the tech yet to fully trust someone else with your data. You have to test it out that your backups work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling snake-oil at best.
- mcherm 10y ago