Backup on internal HDD with rsync

[Gracious]

I have at home a SME 7.5.1 server only for our email, contacts, calendar etc... which has no regular backup, automated incremental. Having recovered a large IDE HDD and as we approached a long rainy weekend, I'm starting.

Backup seems complicated and the net offer lots of solutions that tells me to do the following:

Creating directory to store the backup
mkdir /backup

Adding a hard disk

# List partitions
fdisk-l

# Create and format the partition for backups with
fdisk /dev/hdb

# Automate mounting
vi /etc/fstab

# By adding the following line:

/dev/hdb1 /backup ext3 usrquota,grpquota 1 1

# Mount the partition
mount /dev/hdb1

# Recreate the quotas
quotacheck -cguv /backup

# Create the backup script
vi /bin/backup.sh
# Copy the following lines:

#!/bin/sh
# Date variable
DATE=$(date +%d)
echo "$DATE" >>/tmp/backup.txt
# Rsync large file server
SRC1 = ("/home/e-smith/files" "")
# Destination on the backup server
DEST="/backup/"
# -n simulation
OPTIONS=" --fo^rce --ignore-errors --delete --delete-excluded -av"
# Rsync command
rsync $OPTIONS ${SRC1[@]} $DEST >>/tmp/backup.txt

# Change the script rights
chmod u+x /bin/backup.sh

# Create a ibay "backup" in the server manager (each can fetch a file deleted by mistake)

# Create a symbolic link between data backup and the backup ibay
ln -s /backup/* /home/e-smith/files/ibays/backup/

# Automate start backup
vi /etc/cron.d/backup
# Copy the following lines

# Run the backup script every day at 2:55
55 2 * * * root /bin/backup.sh

[Snake08]

Rsync is a very good solution, and I understand that some prefer it. While respecting this choice, I remind those who seek an automated backup solution that is simple and effective, using just rsync, but is much simpler to implement. I think it would be more effective than a mere copy/paste that people usually does using a script.

[Big Fish]

I would recommend to go for Affa package. This package makes a SME 7 Server into a dedicated backup box in a few minutes. Affa backs up as many SME servers as you want provided it has sshd running and rsync installed. Once configured, Affa runs reliably unattended and sends warning messages in case of any errors. Affa is based on the rsync program and supports the rsync --compress option. Affa is a command line tool for system administrators and is intentionally designed without a GUI.

[Gracious]

For Affa, I'll read the doc because I thought of reserved for "cloning" a server. Here is what I have understand until now.

1. For installation:
wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver...rc4.noarch.rpm
wget http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver...l4.rf.i386.rpm
/usr/bin/yum --enablerepo=smecontribs localinstall \
smeserver-affa-2.0.0-rc4.noarch.rpm \
perl-Compress-Bzip2-2.09-1.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm

After the first installation of Affa, run the following command to initialize the database.
affa --make-cronjobs

and disconnect and reconnect to the console for the automatic completion of bash (TAB) to take effect

2. For installation from USB disk :

Alternative : configuration of hard disk
* We create a Linux partition using fdisk
fdisk /dev/sdb

* You format the drive with an ext3 filesystem :
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

* Create the mount point:
mkdir -p /mnt/affadevice

* Write your disk SD /etc/fstab file. It therefore creates a new line:
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/affadevice ext3 defaults

* It mounts the disk:
mount /mnt/affadevice

* There is a cross-check with df:
df