Configuring RDW-backup services

Introduction

This page describes how Alexis Huxley installed and configures RDW-based backup services.

Configuring the server

1. On the mail server:

   echo "backup: root" >> /etc/aliases
   newaliases

2. On the backup server, as root, run:

   apt-get install rdw
   service rdw stop
   rm -f /var/tmp/{te,rdw}*
   echo "DAEMON=/home/alexis/dev/def/rdw/bin/rdw" >  /etc/default/rdw
   echo "DAEMON_ARGS=\"--server -v\""             >> /etc/default/rdw
   #  Next two lines only needed if daemon is on automounted filesystem
   perl -pi -e 's/(Required.*)/$1 autofs/' /etc/init.d/rdw
   update-rc.d rdw defaults
   cd ~backup
   {
       echo 'PATH=/home/alexis/dev/def/rdw/bin:$PATH'
       echo '#  Fix for SOFT-86'
       echo 'export EDITOR=vi'
   } > .profile
   mkdir .ssh
   touch .bash_history .viminfo .profile
   chown backup:backup .ssh .bash_history .viminfo .profile
   #  Convenient; may say "no changes" to stderr
   usermod --shell /bin/bash backup 2> /dev/null

3. On the backup server, as the backup user, run:

   su - backup
   ssh-keygen -q -N '' -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa_rdw

4. Define a new backup set by running:

   rdw -d 10 --add-set nightly-snapshot "5 0 * * *" "5 0 * * *" \
       "61 * * * *" 30G 50% 28d 28 rdiff_backup
   mkdir /vol/backup/vtape-003
   rdw --label-medium "vtape-003" /vol/backup/vtape-003
   rdw --add-medium "vtape-003" /vol/backup/vtape-003 nightly-snapshot true

5. Add removable hard disk media by running:

   #  Not documented yet

6. Ensure that disks which will provide virtual tapes are mounted with thexattr_user option. (Backups using the ‘rsync’ method will call ‘rsync ... --fake-root‘ and that requires the xattr_user mount option.)
7. Add the following to /etc/postfix/virtual:

   backup <my-public-email-address-as-all-mail-relayed-via-company-servers>

   and run:

   postmap /etc/postfix/virtual

Adding a new client

1. On the server run:

   rdw --add-client torchio
   rdw --add-dle nightly torchio torchio /tmp

   (Follow the prompts from the first command.)

2. Test by running:

   rdw -v --check nightly
   rdw -v --backup nightly

See also

• Computing