hi,
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 04:54:03PM +0100, Guillaume wrote:
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
It's probably better to use a tool like rsync.
man rsync
Rui
On Friday 04 January 2008 11:54:03 am Guillaume wrote:
Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
I don't think there's any easy solution for this besides creating smaller tar files. You can try this shell-script which is the one I use to create individual 8GB tar files (in order to burn them on dual-layer media):
http://www.informatik-vollmer.de/software/split-tar.php
It's called "split-tar". Before using this tool I created a big 80GB tar file and then I used the split command to split it in 8GB chunks...the problem with that was that when I needed to restore something from my DVD's I had to restored all 10 DVD's to a directory and then perform cat xa* > bigFile.tar
Split-tar came to the rescue...as it can create individual tar files with the approximate size I specify....
Anyway..you didn't specify your backup medium. If it's another drive...why not just copy the files (without archiving them)? This is what I do (night backups to my 2nd drive via a shell script). You can use rsync and many other tools... When I backup to optical media that's then I use tar...(because I want to preserver ownership/permission bits...).
HTH, Jorge
Guillaume wrote:
hi,
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
These are my two alternatives.. and I use both:
- use tar, but exclude all the directories you do not need. For ex. if you backup your home folder you can exclude .icons, the cache folder from your browser, etc. You will see that the size of the file will go down a lot.
- use rsync and also in this case exclude everything you do not need to backup.
Ivan
On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 04:54:03PM +0100, Guillaume wrote:
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... ... Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Hmm...dunno if it'll be any faster, but you could try cpio. It's another old standby, and uses a different directory structure. But it sounds like you're dealing with a lot of data, so there are still a lot of bytes to slap around.
Others have mentioned rsync. If you want actual backup, take a look at Amanda, but be prepared--it's relatively complex. -- Dave Ihnat President, DMINET Consulting, Inc. dihnat@dminet.com
Dave Ihnat wrote:
On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 04:54:03PM +0100, Guillaume wrote:
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... ... Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Hmm...dunno if it'll be any faster, but you could try cpio. It's another old standby, and uses a different directory structure. But it sounds like you're dealing with a lot of data, so there are still a lot of bytes to slap around.
Others have mentioned rsync. If you want actual backup, take a look at Amanda, but be prepared--it's relatively complex.
My favorite is backuppc (http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/), which has several advantages that apply to this scenario. First, even though it may take some time to set up, it is a 'start and forget' program that normally needs no attention and will send you an email when things go wrong. Second, it stores the backups compressed and links duplicate files (whether from subsequent backups or different targets) to save additional space. Third, it provides a handy web server for browsing through the backup history and doing restores with random access, either back to the source machine or downloaded through the browser interface.
Guillaume wrote:
hi,
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
Our system admin likes backupPC
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
He uses it at work and home.
On Fri, 2008-01-04 at 11:01 -0700, Robin Laing wrote:
Guillaume wrote:
hi,
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
Our system admin likes backupPC
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
He uses it at work and home.
And BackupPC is already packaged for Fedora 'yum install BackupPC'.
Brian
Brian Gaynor wrote:
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
Our system admin likes backupPC
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
He uses it at work and home.
And BackupPC is already packaged for Fedora 'yum install BackupPC'.
But I'd recommend for any serious use that you set up the archive storage on its own partition.
Robin Laing wrote:
Guillaume wrote:
hi,
actually, I use the tar utility to backup my fedora box to a file... After a full backup file is reach near 8GB, and when I want to restore some backuped files, it take veeerrrryyy long time (more than 1h30) to analyse/index the file and extract the needed folders. Is there a way to speed up the restore process with any options to tar, or, any other command utility to use for my backup.
Thanks for your help.
Our system admin likes backupPC
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
He uses it at work and home.
I think Robin's on the right track, I suspect the tar workalikes (star, pax, cpio) will also choke on the load.
Also consider amanda and bacula.
Maybe also disk archiver, dar, which can make DVD-sized files to burn and (I think) indexes them. dar.df.net