Linode Forum

[jjdb210]

I'm absolutely in love with the (relatively) new backup service linode has. I would like to request 1 additional feature that I think could be extremely useful...

A download snapshot to local machine.

I'm guessing that *really* savvy people could probably get the image to then work using something like virtualbox or vmware (or maybe even their own XEN install).

The other possibility would be to then have an upload snapshot button.

Perhaps limit this feature to 1 download per week, or something like that to keep bandwidth concerns in check.

It would just be nice to be able to have an occasional "offsite" backup.

[ripken204]

there already is a way to download the image, I forgot how exactly, it's not through the web interface.
I think that the download size is taken from your bandwidth.

[obs]

Restore it to a new linode, boot into finnix, and follow this guide just backwards http://library.linode.com/linode-platform/custom-instances/custom-distro-howto it's not very quick or easy but it works. And yes it does take from your bandwidth.

[jjdb210]

I was aware of the ability to download the image... but the 2 things I don't like about it:

1) To mirror the linode properly, your supposed to shut your box down (or so says the web interface). I would prefer to not have to do this every time i want to make an offsite backup... If the backup already has my data, why not just let me download the backup?

2) Seems like a lot of extra steps/work, when just making the backup snapshot available to download should be relatively quick (assuming it's just a single file stored on a remote location...)

And yes, I know I can create my own offsite backups of just the files (I have where needed)... But I think this would be a more complete download and restore solution, and easier on me :-).

Hence the feature request :-).

[ChemicalKicks]

On the old backup front.... Are the backups that are made kept on another host, what happens if something catastrophic happens to the host?

[obs]

Different host in the same data centre, if the host craps out then you'll be moved to a new host and be able to restore a backup.

[ChemicalKicks]

Thanks!

[hybinet]

There is no reason to download the backup snapshot on a regular basis. Maybe you'll want to do it once every few months to keep a copy of a "clean slate". But if you do it any more frequently than that, it's a tremendous waste of bandwidth and storage space. Why? Because in most cases, only a small portion of the data changes between daily, weekly, or even monthly backups.

A much better solution would be to use rsync, rdiff-backup, rsnapshot, or any other rsync-related tool to maintain an incremental backup of your server contents. This way, you don't need to shut down your server, you can choose to skip easily replaceable files such as your OS packages, and you only need to transfer files that have changed since your last backup. The added hassle of backing up the files instead of the whole filesystem is totally worth the bandwidth and storage savings. In addition, it shouldn't be any more difficult to restore this backup than it would be to restore a complete filesystem dump. Just provision a fresh distribution image and run rsync in the other direction.

The only thing you need to remember is to create a database dump before running the backup. But you should be doing this anyway, even with Linode's own backup service. Databases hate it when you just copy files out from under their feet.