I am looking for a backup software that will run on CentOS 5 and backup Linux and Windows machines well.

I have already tried Yosemite and Novastor (similar products--almost identical), and both cause my LTO3 tape to go offline immediately upon accessing it.

I was wondering what suggestions people have and especially success stories.

Thanks.

I use backuppc on Debian Etch. It works great, and wasn't too hard to configure. Though I'm just backing up to hard disk and then occasionally to DVD.

Anything wrong with the available tools for CentOS5: amanda, amanda-client and amanda-server 2.5.0p2-4 rpm packages???

yum install ananda amanda-client amanada-server

What about partimage??

http://www.partimage.org/
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/partimage/

The most fully featured, though somewhat difficult to configure package that I have found is Bacula. It has clients for Linux and Windows. It will properly span tapes; it can be configured to use Mysql, Postgresql, or Sqlite, as the database containing the backed up files. I switched from Amanda quite awhile ago, and never looked back.

It seems most packages, in terms of backups, are difficult to configure. I'm not sure why.

Thanks for all the input. I did look into Zmanda--Amanda's big sister. Here are my notes (prices excluded)

Open Source solution (Amanda). Zmanda is the supported commercial version.
• No open file support (said by end of 2007)
• Supports CentOS 5.0
• D2D2T would work via a 5 job and a 30 job working together in a round about way
• Backs up Windows without Samba by using an Amanda client running under Cygwin (they are writing a pure windows service to replace this)
• Runs on their on LAMP stack to avoid problems
• Paid version provides this and support, browser based management console, certified system
• Uses non proprietary subsystems for backing up (probably dump and restore, rsync and such)
• Simple interface
• Up to 4 data streams
• Scheduling uses cron
• Offer 30 day trial
• Windows client is setup via an MSI
• They have a RAIT configuration that writes to disk and tape simultaneously (not sure what benefit that would be other than they say it would keep the index correctly) I think the 5 and 30 backupsets would work better.

After having seen their demo, it looked interesting, but still lacking. I think maybe in another year they may have the things I am interested in.

I haven't tried bacula yet.

I also haven't tried Arkeia. They promise to meet my needs. So has everyone else so far. Their pricing seemed a bit high... well it was decent for up to 1TB, but to get use of my 2nd TB was going to cost a considerable amount of additional money.

I have read a lot of negative reviews on ArcServe. Does anyone have an opionion abou it?

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I will note them and keep them in mind, during the search.

Partimage looks neat for DR, but for daily backup in terms of only backing up changes and such to avoid all data from all machines being rebacked up every day, I'm not sure it is meant for that. Am I correct?

I've used Bacula and found it very good. It takes some times to learn the commands and concepts, but once you got, it works like a charm. It's very flexible.

I am a newbie on Linux. I have visited this link http://www.howtoforge.com/centralize...anda-on-centos but did not know where to do the changes if I want to use my hardisk as the back up device.

I am getting the error messages like after I used the following command in the bash login

-bash-3.2$ for ((i=1; $i<=15; i++)); do /usr/sbin/amlabel intra intra-$i slot $i; done

"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 22: a quoted string expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 22: end of line expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 23: tape type parameter expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 23: end of line expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 24: tape type parameter expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 24: end of line expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 25: tape type parameter expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 25: end of line expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 26: tape type parameter expected

Could you help me fix it?

org "Configuration name"
mailto "email"
netusage 600 Kbps

dumpcycle 2 weeks
runspercycle 10
tapecycle 15 tapes

#tpchanger "chg-manual"
tpchanger "chg-disk"

changerfile "/etc/amanda/intra/changer"

#tapedev "null:"
tapedev "file:/backup/intra/slots"

#tapetype HP-DAT
#labelstr "^DailySet1-[0-9][0-9]*$"

tapetype HARDDISK
define tapetype HARDDISK {
comment “Backup to Virtual Tape”
length 3072 mbytes # each tape is 3 Gigs
}

# amrecover_changer "null:"
amrecover_changer "changer"

#infofile "/etc/amanda/DailySet1/curinfo" # database DIRECTORY
#logdir "/etc/amanda/ DailySet1" # log directory
#indexdir "/etc/amanda/ DailySet1/index" # index directory
infofile "/var/log/amanda/intra/curinfo" # database DIRECTORY
logdir "/var/log/amanda/intra" # log directory
indexdir "/var/log/amanda/intra/index" # index directory

Weve used lone-star for over 8 or 9 years on the unix side - this year is the first on linux but it was very reliable on the sco unix side of things for us. www.cactus.com

Well, this is a very interesting thread. nandanm1 hijacks a 2 year old thread to ask a new question. Then bmayhem throws in a one liner suggesting a totally different product rather than addressing the question.

I wonder if the admins have any way of breaking this into two threads with a new header for nandanm1's question. Well, anyway, it was at least related to the original thread.

So, nandanm1, what you want is the virtual tape configuration. That will then use space on a disk drive as though it were a tape for your backups. There is a howto on the Zmanda wiki -- http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/How..._Virtual_Tapes.

The error messages are pointing to lines in your amanda.conf file. It would help if you would tell exactly what lines 22-26 are. I can count lines and make assumptions about what you posted, but ...

I'm guessing that the initial error is the slanted double quotes (rather than plain double quotes) on either side of the comment in your tapetype definition. A typesetter might like it, but a programmer won't. Just maybe that throws everything off. Try fixing that and reporting back with specific details.

Line 22: comment “Backup to Virtual Tape”
Line 23: length 3072 mbytes # each tape is 3 Gigs
Line 24: }
Line 25:
Line 26: # amrecover_changer "null:"

and you were guessing was right! once I changed the Line 22: comment "Backup to Virtual Tape" it worked fine.

The initial error was the slanted double quotes (rather than plain double quotes) on either side of the comment in my tapetype definition.

A Big Thank you to you "choogendyk".

Great! I'm glad it worked out. Sometimes it's easy to scan right past those kinds of errors and never see them.

You're welcome. By the way, if you click on the thumbs up icon on the bottom corner of the post that helped you, that's an official thank you.

"/etc/amanda/intra/disklist", line 1: disk dumptype expected
"/etc/amanda/intra/disklist", line 2: disk dumptype expected
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-----------------------------
ERROR: logdir /var/log/amanda/intra: No such file or directory, you must create a directory.
slot 1: read label `intra-1', date `X'

NOTE: skipping tape-writable test
Tape intra-1 label ok
NOTE: info dir /var/log/amanda/intra/curinfo: does not exist
NOTE: it will be created on the next run.
Server check took 0.112 seconds

Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check
--------------------------------
Client check: 0 hosts checked in 0.000 seconds, 0 problems found

(brought to you by Amanda 2.5.0p2)

when i used the following command /usr/sbin/amcheck intra on the backup server.

I checked the the /etc/amanda/intra/disklist file and it read as follows:

alpha /home/test comp-user-tar
Beta /home/test1 comp-user-tar

both my alpha and Beta are on Centos 5.2.

I tried including

define dumptype example {
global
comment "example dumptype"
compress client fast
program "GNUTAR"
strategy standard
priority high
}

in /etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf

for which I received and error stating as mentioned below:

"/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf", line 27: dump type parameter expected
amcheck: errors processing config file "/etc/amanda/intra/amanda.conf"


Please Help!

In your disklist, the "comp-user-tar" is the dumptype. That dumptype should be defined in your amanda.conf file. That ought to be among the definitions in the default amanda.conf. It makes reference to dumptype user-tar, which makes reference to root-tar, which makes reference to global. So all those dumptypes are in the default amanda.conf.

Again, which line is 27? Do you still have the definition of dumptype global?