[Dirvish] Backing up to remote computer that has rsync

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 01:26:53PM -0500, August Zajonc wrote:
> Dirvish looks fantastic.
> 
> I'm wondering if it is possible to back up one computer to a remote
> computer, where the remote computer simply has rsync / ssh installed,
> but does NOT have dirvish installed.
> 
> I've purchased rsync space on a remote machine and would like to use
> dirvish to backup to it.

Dirvish does "pull" backups, meaning that the server pulls backups from
other machines, perhaps over the network.  There are other tools that do
push, and are suitable for backing up user files.

When you think about it, writing a proper image of a complete machine
means that the backup process needs root access on the backup target; 
otherwise the backup software cannot write the root-owned files or do
other manipulations.  If the client has root privileges on the backup
server, then all sorts of nasty things can happen, especially if the
client has had a security compromise.   If backing up multiple clients,
it is difficult to schedule them to not slow each other down.

So dirvish is a "pull" server.  If you have root access on the remote
machine, consider installing perl and running dirvish from there.  
Perhaps you can run everything from a chroot jail and not need full
root access at the remote end.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs