[wplug-internet] Backups

[Bill Moran]

On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:54:48 -0400
Duncan Hutty <dhutty at ece.cmu.edu> wrote:

> Michael Semcheski wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Bill Moran<wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> >>> 1) Completely lay out the setup and configuration of the current
> >>> instance, and then backup the data that changes (using rsync) to
> >>> personal machines or to another cloud (e.g. s3).
> > 
> >> If you decide to got this way, I volunteer my PC + inet connection.  I
> >> have 10mb/sec FIOS, and an 80G HDD that isn't even formatted because I
> >> don't need the space.
> > 
> > One thing that complicates this - there is data on the server that
> > isn't appropriate to have on Bill's PC (not because of anything
> > personal I have against Bill.)  The stuff in /home/board isn't on the
> > wiki for a reason.
> 
> This is surely not too difficult. Encrypt the data before you send it to 
> Bill's machine with a key that only board members have. Change the key 
> every time the board changes (Changing keys occasionally is a good idea 
> anyway).

That was along the lines of what I was thinking.  The problem with this is
that rsync isn't going to help with encrypted data that changes, because
the entire chunk of data will change when it's encrypted.

So, the feasibility of this is _how_much_ data needs to be encrypted?  If
there are 5M of encrypted data that changes once a month, and 50M of clear
data, then rsync is going to be a win.  If it's mostly encrypted, then
rsync isn't going to be worth it ... we'll be better off bzipping it and
just scping it over.

I agree that it would be better if I weren't the only one doing this.  The
positive side of this is once we've got it set up for me, it'll be very
easy to replicate the setup for someone else.  And having me do it is better
than nobody right now.

Like I said, I'm offering.  LMK if you guys want to go forward with it.

-Bill