Subject: Re: FYI - An interesting method to backup your system
To: None <port-hpcmips@NetBSD.org>
From: ROC <roryoc@nc.rr.com>
List: port-hpcmips
Date: 08/21/2004 23:24:38
Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote:

>On 08/19 04:04 , Tim Underwood wrote:
>  
>
>>cd /
>>tar -cvzf - * | ssh <targetsystem> -l <userid> dd of=backupfile.tgz
>>
>>One of those things that's completely logical, but I hadn't thought of
>>before.
>>    
>>
>
>yep. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world when someone pointed
>that one out to me. I usually do it slightly differently (ssh from the
>backing-up host to the client, then tar there, piping it back down to a
>local dd or tar client); but the concept is the same.
>
>for a fancier way to back up your system, which handles laptops with aplomb
>and gives you a nice web-based GUI for restores, I heartily recommend
>BackupPC (backuppc.sf.net). It just uses rsync and ssh to back up anything
>that can accept an rsync or ssh connection. niftiest thing I've seen in
>ages; and the developer is a really great & helpful guy.
>
>  
>
The tar/ssh is good for secure copies, but, on Solaris at least, I found 
it to take about 10 times longer (probably due to all the 
pipelining/encrypting/decrypting/network handshaking? ) than straight 
FTP, so not a good option for lots of data (i.e. over a few dozen MB or 
so) if time is any kind of issue.  And since that was on 100Mb Ethernet 
with Gigabit backbone between Enterprise class UltraSPARC servers, I 
suspect a MobilePro with 10Mb ethernet card (can't use the 100Mb cardbus 
cards, right?) would be another 10 times slower or so due to the NIC 
speed, and that does not factor in the ssh load on that little ol'  MIPS 
processor at 168 Mhz compared to dual or quad 400 Mhz UltraSPARC cpu's, 
and  2-4GB of  RAM...

Anyone done any timings?

-- 
FWIW
--
Rory O'Connor -  
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