Tunneling rsync to another server on remote site??

[Moloko]

Hi all,

Maybe this already has been covered, if so I would really like to have the link to the answer...


My problem is:

I have BubbaTWO at my home, and I would like to make a backup to a remote server located on a different/remote location.

My question are:
Which solutions do you propose:
- tunneling the traffic (ho do I do that with my Bubba??)
- using another transfer protocol instead of ssh? Which one?
- other tips or trick?

[Ubi]

this has been covered extensively in other threads. Please read these first

[jovisuk]

Hi, I was passed this link by a user in this forum:

http://www.howtoforge.com/mirroring_with_rsync

Also, there is:

http://forum.excito.net/viewtopic.php?t=415

[ryz]

What to use to do a backup depends on so many different thinks. What type of server are the remote server? A Windows or a Linux host. Can you install program on the server? How do you want the backup to work?

I myself uses rdiff-backup which is very similar to rsync with the added bonus that you can have incremental backups and not just a snapshot which means that you can go back to an older backup version if you need to. Thats very good if you accidentally deleted some file and do not realize it until after you have been running an backup. With rsync you are screwed not so with rdiff.backup. The problem with rdiff-backup is that you have to have the same version of rdiff-backup installed on both machines.

Tunneling with ssh is most likely the easiest solution but then it depends on which backup program and its capabilities.

[Ubi]

you can do incremental backups with Rsync. It's the basic principle of the protocol.

[ryz]

With incremental backup I did not mean to send only updated data to the remote server but rather to be able to keep several days of backups so that I can go back to an older version of the file then the one from the latest backup. Rsync seems to be able to do something similar with the --backup switch but not near as good as I understand it. Rdiff-backup uses the rsync libraries to sync the files but adds some magic for incremental backups for example:

This command restores host.net::/remote-dir/file as it was 10 days ago into a new location /tmp/file.
rdiff-backup -r 10D host.net::/remote-dir/file /tmp/file

[Ubi]

again you can do this with rsync as well but admittedly not as easily as your proposed solution, which may indeed be a better way for non-professional users. You reckon it'd be useful to write a small page about it in the bubba wiki? I guess a small example and a pointer to the rdiff website should suffice.

ubi

[Moloko]

I've already seen the proposed threads, but the issue that I haven't got any clarity in yet is the security/privacy part when rsync'ing between two servers located on two different sites.

How can I be sure that the traffic when syncing is secure and not eavesdropping on?
Should I use some kind of VPN tunneling?

[Ubi]

Rsync by default already tunnels over SSH (I suppose you can run it unencrypted by using an rsync server process, but I've never done this). As rdiff-backup uses rsync as a back-end (at least that's how I understand it works) this also runs over SSH.

ubi

[Moloko]

Rsync by default already tunnels over SSH

Ok, good to hear!