I have a site (yes, some would call it app, but "site" was there first and I'm sticking with that term) with a setup like so:

A) 1 linode holds php + nginx
B) 1 linode holds mysql
C) 1 linode holds redis

I also have a linode that RSYNCs the content of (A) and mysqldumps every morning from (B) and stores it i.e. in effect creates a backup of my site and stores it on this one linode that does nothing else than just sit there as backup. At times, I even make backup of the backup and RSYNCs the whole linode to my home machine so that if New Jersey gets completely snowed in, I can still setup my site elsewhere with a couple of days lagging.

My simple question is: is there a better/simpler/cheaper way to make backups at linode? I know of the backup package but pardon me for saying so but it seems .... well, not so good.

Anyways, please do feel free to pitch me your suggestions, if you can spare the time.

Much appreciated.

I personally use duplicity + amazons s3 service to store my backups. Depending on how much data you're storing and how often you access it, it should still turn out cheaper than having a dedicated linode just for storing backups, but it would still be a good idea to back up to multiple services just in case

>> I have a site (yes, some would call it app, but "site" was there first and I'm sticking with that term)

If it's not Web 2.0 (no AJAX for example) then it's still a site, not an app, that's my understanding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

It's tough to do better than rsync for backups, after the very first one, it's fast for daily backups, use the -e option to run over ssh.

If a vulnerability in rsync is ever found then all operating systems are in trouble.

If a vulnerability in rsync is ever found... it won't matter for most of us, as we don't use rsync in daemon mode. We use it over SSH, and so in order to exploit a flaw in rsync they would first need to get an authenticated SSH connection to the server.

Thank you for the S3 suggestion. Seems a reasonable alternative.

sorry to hijack this thread but is there a good way to keep local backups of a linode? //linux n00b here

Thanks!

Depends on your definition of "local"... Linode offers a backup service ($5/mth on the cheapest Linode, IIRC) that keeps on-site backups, allowing you to recover quickly from hardware failures or messing up your linode; you can deploy a new linode from a backup.

I have an old quiet laptop with a big disk running 24/7 at home.
Linode dumps an rdiff-backup incremental to it every night.
Wouldn't recommend that for a mission critical system, but for personal stuff it's fine.

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rsk, providing useless advice on the Internet since 2005.

Which keeps him busy on weekends backing that up to floppies...

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Either provide enough details for people to help, or sit back and listen to the crickets chirp.
Security thru obscurity is a myth - and really really annoying.

That's true.

Local backups as in on an external hard disk (or even dropbox) What i do currently is backup the file system using webmin and dump the databases into a gzip every at 2 am via a cron task, (it also keeps the last 10 days worth of databases) But what would be great is something that takes incremental backups of the files + system and also be able to restore a single file if needed. I was thinking of using linode for the system and keep doing my usual business for the data+databases but thought there might be an easier route.

I'll take a look into rdiff-backup though! Thanks!