5 ms·
A pretty low-tech system I saw in use in the '90s, without having to go all the way to serial cables, was just FTP with delete/overwrite disabled, to a machine
by mjn 13y ago
A pretty low-tech system I saw in use in the '90s, without having to go all the way to serial cables, was just FTP with delete/overwrite disabled, to a machine with no other network services running. You dump a snapshot and FTP it to the backup host over your local ethernet. The FTP server accepts new files, but doesn't allow deletions or modifications of previously uploaded files (lots of FTP servers have this option, in order to be able to create a public "anonymous upload" folder without people overwriting each others' uploads). If you ever need to retrieve the backups, you physically log in on the backup machine and do something from there.
This does rely on the FTP implementation being solid (vsftpd seems like a reasonable choice).
- eli 13y agoSounds like a typical tarsnap set up. You can have a key that only appends backups, but can't delete them.
- jewel 13y agoThat is a good idea. I have considered having a network service like that, but I'm a little too paranoid. I want something that will survive heretofore unseen events, like a 0-day remote root exploit in the Linux kernel networking stack. If such a remote root exploit exists, and the person that discovers it decides to write something like the Code Red worm from 2001, and also decides to have the worm erase all block devices, I'd currently lose every file I have and all of my backups, even though they are geographically dispersed. It's possible that even services like S3 and Dropbox would be wiped in such an event. Once again, I realize I'm unusually paranoid in this regard, but I really don't want to lose my stuff.
- gaadd33 13y agoYou could just store backups on tape and ship them to a secure storage facility run by Iron Mountain.
- tachion 13y agoNot everything is running on Linux you know, and therefore not everything is prone to the 0 day remote Linux kernel exploit. Get yourself other backup layers on other operatying systems, like Tarsnap, that runs FreeBSD, and you should get another level of security.
- borplk 13y agoDon't Amazon services such as Glacier effectively guarantee you wont lose the data? (as in, they take proper offline backups and everything?)