# What Backup Software Do YOU Use?



## shovenose (Jan 12, 2014)

cPremote is such a piece of crap, it sometimes works, but it's not consistent, has a horrible interface, it's buggy, support is useless, and I think we can do better.

I found this:

https://r1softlicenses.com/order

It's about $8/mo/server, which is fantastic.

If I could use that same software to back up the OVZ node(s) that would be cool. I'm fairly certain they have a cPanel plugin for the customer to use to manage their backups and restores, as far as the shared server(s). But I would also like to know, is this software good for restoring an entire server should one of our RAID arrays take a dump?

If not R1Soft, what does everybody else here use? I'm hoping to get this implemented ASAP, so I don't have to renew cPremote.

Thanks,

Michael


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## TruvisT (Jan 12, 2014)

Bacula. Big fan of using their stuff.


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## GIANT_CRAB (Jan 12, 2014)

Rsync, FTP, SFTP.

only the kool skids know how 2 shell and cr8 their own crons running those shell script 2 backup.


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## trewq (Jan 12, 2014)

http://www.bacula4hosts.com/

Check it out.


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## drmike (Jan 12, 2014)

Still clinging to rsync.


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## MCH-Phil (Jan 12, 2014)

I personally have no issues with cpremote and use it across both locations I offer web hosting at this time, with no need or want to change.  It just works, for me.

Currently my OpenVZ offering is backed up with Bacula and I supported the Bacula guys to bring Bacula4Hosts to SolusVM and KVM.  Great product.  Just not where I'm going at this time with things.  I will not be rolling out Bacula for KVM VPS due to per VM licensing.  Even with the special pricing I was offered due to before mentioned fact.  Great people the Bacula guys and gals.

Otherwise, I use SolusVM ftp backup to handle backing up customer VM's and have not had much an issue.  Other then time to completion.

Also, I personally feel it is so trivial to bring a node / server back online that *most* of the time the OS needs no backup.


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## NodeBytes (Jan 12, 2014)

Crashplan for systems, s3 for databases, and rsync for file sync/backups between servers.


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## Francisco (Jan 12, 2014)

r1soft is so brutally heavy on server.

It's nice because a user can auto restore their stuff but yea.

Francisco


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## tonyg (Jan 12, 2014)

offsite backups: tar + openssl + rsync

LAN backups: rsync with backup option (--backup)


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## blergh (Jan 12, 2014)

Back what?


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## tonyg (Jan 12, 2014)

blergh said:


> Back what?


Yes, its that thing that people do after they loose data.


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## MannDude (Jan 12, 2014)

Francisco said:


> r1soft is so brutally heavy on server.


Also not super duper fantastic to manage or deal with when things don't work as intended. But when it does work, it's pretty neat. Just hope you like clicking around a heavy interface.

I just use a little backup script that I'm working on. It just rsyncs data to a remote server on a schedule. No restore feature. It works though.


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## mikho (Jan 13, 2014)

> "It's backup day today so I'm pissed off. Being the BOFH, however, does have it's advantages. I reassign /dev/null to be the tape device - it's so much more economical on my time as I don't have to keep getting up to change tapes every 5 minutes. And it speeds up backups too, so it can't be all bad can it? Of course not."


I think we need a BOFH icon


Have anyone tried Ahsay? Multi platform (java).


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## gxbfxvar (Jan 13, 2014)

I am using tarsnap for my servers. Data is encrypted on client side (client code is open source) and then stored on Amazon's servers. It is pretty light weight, so you can use it also on Raspberry Pi and other low powered ARM devices.


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## dano (Jan 13, 2014)

Bacula has been my favorite for the past few years, and before then I would rsync to a network share(messy), but didn't really rely on it for anything important.


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## tmzVPS-Daniel (Jan 13, 2014)

R1Soft is horrible, do NOT use it. The two choices you have left are Bacula or regular rsync. 

- Daniel


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## shovenose (Jan 13, 2014)

Bacula would work not just only for cPanel but for OpenVZ nodes as well? Does it offer a way for people to restore their VPS? Would be too cool (don't get why SolusVM doesn't do this, really is a neccessary feature). Though I think it would mainly be useful for entire node RAID failures, or if they cancel then 10 minutes later want their data back.

cPremote has the cPanel plugin for customers but it rarely works as intended - I've got more support tickets "help, backup won't restore" than "thank god you have backup, I really appreciate it!" Let me rephrase that: I don't know of a single incident where anybody was actually happy with cPremote, myself or my customer(s) included. And, it was a b*tch to set up.

Enough bashing of the useless product. But I will figure something out! Bacula4Hosts seems promising if not somewhat convoluted of a pricing scheme. Wish they offered it on LicensePal, then it would actually make sense LOL.


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## dano (Jan 13, 2014)

Bacula is a "file-level" backup program -- so it will go through a file system on a configured client machine and backup directories that you need(specify in server config). With bacula, you can then later on, use it to restore "etc" from a backup 6 months ago(depending on your config) to a new machine,etc. In theory, you could point it at your vm storage directory and have it pull that entire directory down to the backup server(or storage server more correctly). Unfortunately, it's not a "restore" from bare metal app really, but it will have all your files there if you tell it to grab them.

This differs from a snapshot, which is an image taken at a particular moment, or even your providers "disk image based" backup options. You should always have your own backups, as relying on a providers "disk backup" can have it's problems, where as the provider has their storage system corrupt it's data or fail and not have a good secondary copy, they my not have a up to date and valid version of your data available to restore, so running bacula to keep track of your important files is a good idea. You can even point bacula to just grab the entire root dir, if you are worried about missing something and have the disk space to store it


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## tragic (Jan 13, 2014)

Currently using rsync. I'm going to check Bacula from all the positive feedback from this thread.


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## drmike (Jan 13, 2014)

Bacula is getting a looksie from me too


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## Awmusic12635 (Jan 13, 2014)

Bacula4hosts here, good product. We originally got them to support solusvm + whmcs module.


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## MCH-Phil (Jan 13, 2014)

shovenose said:


> cPremote has the cPanel plugin for customers but it rarely works as intended - I've got more support tickets "help, backup won't restore" than "thank god you have backup, I really appreciate it!" Let me rephrase that: I don't know of a single incident where anybody was actually happy with cPremote, myself or my customer(s) included. And, it was a b*tch to set up.
> 
> Enough bashing of the useless product. But I will figure something out! Bacula4Hosts seems promising if not somewhat convoluted of a pricing scheme. Wish they offered it on LicensePal, then it would actually make sense LOL.



As you have said nothing concerning what does not work for you...  It makes me wonder.  You also claim it is hard to setup...?  Seriously?  Copy and paste to install and fill in backup site information?

I do agree, please don't hate on a product because you can't make it work.  I've personally not had 1 customer ticket relating to issues with cpremote.

Licensepal and bacula?  Good luck.  They do not need licensepal to handle any advertising for them.  Bacula is a big boy in the backup scene.  You will never see lower pricing then you have seen on their site.  I have personally spoke with developers of bacula and they cannot offer lower pricing.  I do not know how private the information was I was given so this is all I will say.

@dano, bacula does offer a bare metal restore.  I have personally used it.


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## nunim (Jan 14, 2014)

MCH-Phil said:


> ... Licensepal and bacula?  Good luck.  They do not need licensepal to handle any advertising for them.  Bacula is a big boy in the backup scene.  You will never see lower pricing then you have seen on their site.  I have personally spoke with developers of bacula and they cannot offer lower pricing.  I do not know how private the information was I was given so this is all I will say...


I thought Bacula was free ? I've never used it personally, I stick to rsync for my personal backups.  God love Nick_A and his 50 GB of storage on a 128 plan


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## MCH-Phil (Jan 14, 2014)

I sucked at typing that.  Let me try again. Distinguishing products this time.

... Licensepal and bacula4hosts? Good luck. They do not need licensepal to handle any advertising for them. bacula4hosts is a big boy in the backup scene. You will never see lower pricing then you have seen on their site. I have personally spoke with developers of bacula4hosts and they cannot offer lower pricing. I do not know how private the information was I was given so this is all I will say...

@Shove, take my post as, what are you having issue with as far as cpremote. If you want real alternatives / assistance, this is the best way to get it. What don't you like about the software, specifically.

Bacula and Bacula4Hosts contain bare metal restore options.


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## bdtech (Jan 23, 2014)

Usually Duplicity or s3cmd


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## shovenose (Jan 23, 2014)

Using incremental backup, rsync, SCP, and BackBlaze, in that order. So I have four copies of everything.


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## joepie91 (Jan 23, 2014)

Duplicity, with a Tahoe-LAFS backend.


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## BuzzzHost (Jan 25, 2014)

We have been using R1Soft plus in house scripting using RSync commands with FTP servers in remote locations. The key is to get the client to run personal backups of their data so that you can focus on retaining your systems important files and data. It is always good to keep disaster recovery backups for any random situations however I am just saying, you'd be surprised how many people simply don't backup their data as we receive ticket after ticket of people who needs their website restored.


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## Icevirt (Jan 25, 2014)

I use backupninja wrapper with duplicity. It exports my databases, as well as uses gpg encryption, then uses duplicity to put into my Dropbox folder. So I guess in the end using r sync with some pretty wrappers for easy configs

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk


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## rsk (Jan 25, 2014)

rsync here too, but if you have spare cash lying around go for r1soft. One of the best


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## raindog308 (Jan 27, 2014)

gxbfxvar said:


> I am using tarsnap for my servers. Data is encrypted on client side (client code is open source) and then stored on Amazon's servers. It is pretty light weight, so you can use it also on Raspberry Pi and other low powered ARM devices.


Tarsnap is awesome but expensive.  I use it for a few critical things (my PasswordSafe files, etc.)

I wrote an article for Linux Journal about it: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tarsnap-line-backups-truly-paranoid

Got to interview Dr. Percival - great guy.


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## raindog308 (Jan 27, 2014)

All this talk of rsync makes me nervous.  But I suppose it depends on what you want.

rsync is fine if you just want another copy.

Personally, I want to be able to go back in time. Something goes haywire on Friday and I don't discover it until Monday.  I want to be able to go back to Friday, not be stuck with a perfect copy of the haywire.  May not even be the whole system - just to be able to pull a "last known good" config file or DB dump from a few days ago.

And remember kids...pull from the backup, don't push from the client.  If your server is hacked, you don't want the attacker to also nuke your backups.


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## shovenose (Jan 27, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> All this talk of rsync makes me nervous.  But I suppose it depends on what you want.
> 
> rsync is fine if you just want another copy.
> 
> ...


Pushing from the client, manually, forced to enter a password, is perfectly safe.


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## web-project (Jan 28, 2014)

we use ssh + rsync = best solution, as for the rest waste of time and money.


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## happel (Jan 28, 2014)

shovenose said:


> Pushing from the client, manually, forced to enter a password, is perfectly safe.


passwords and automated backups.


best. combination. ever.


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## Virtovo (Jan 28, 2014)

shovenose said:


> Pushing from the client, manually, forced to enter a password, is perfectly safe.


I'd prefer to push A to B then have C pull from B


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## ThePrimeHost (Jan 28, 2014)

We've used R1Soft / Idera for a few years now. It has it's hiccups but overall it's pretty good.


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## RHServices (Jan 31, 2014)

Same here, we use R1Soft/Idera to backup customer dedicated servers as well as all of our VPS infrastructure. Never had a problem in 2-3 years of usage. Saved our ass many times, well worth the price and ease of use


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## joepie91 (Jan 31, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> And remember kids...pull from the backup, don't push from the client.  If your server is hacked, you don't want the attacker to also nuke your backups.


Or just make your backup target append-only.


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## tonyg (Jan 31, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> All this talk of rsync makes me nervous.  But I suppose it depends on what you want.
> 
> rsync is fine if you just want another copy.
> 
> ...


rsync with the backup option will move changed/deleted files to a dated directory and give you the ability to go back to a file that was changed at a certain date in the past.


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## zachh (Jan 31, 2014)

Rsync. Always thinking the most simplistic.


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## jenok (Feb 1, 2014)

local backup + rsync


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## KS_Samuel (Feb 3, 2014)

rsnapshot / rsync usually.


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## WelltodoInformalCattle (Feb 3, 2014)

rsync at the moment but I'm open to new ideas you guys have proposed here.


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## HostingAbove (Feb 4, 2014)

Rsync is what we use. We also have a few backup solutions running with Backupsy. Has worked great with us, as always we prefer local backups but backupsy is what we recommend to those clients on a tight budget.

^TG


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## VisionGroup (Oct 9, 2015)

as a company that uses Vmware for everything i love Vmexplorer, ( https://www.trilead.com/ )

great for vm backups and replication to other hosts.

no i dont sell it or work for them!


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## GalaxyHostPlus (Oct 9, 2015)

I don't really trust any website backup or DC etc for backup if anything happen and provide decided we abused it etc there could be issues  so I bought cheap thin client and external storage and backup all my data to thin client daily.

For me it's great solution low power usage no fans no noise and running any OS I want so far it's running under Debian 7 32 bit minimal uptime is great only if my energy is down but that not an issue here server up for last 6 months


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## VATruica (Oct 10, 2015)

CLI tools like rsync and tar. Dirvish is also interesting to look at (still based on rsync)


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## web-project (Dec 22, 2015)

we use Rsync, SSH, snapshots  and network server replication of data


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## farhanideas (Jun 12, 2017)

R1soft is good for taking backing up


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## graeme (Jun 12, 2017)

rsync + rdiff-backup.

I have just set up rclone backups for a client.


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## fm7 (Jun 12, 2017)

Borg (server) and GoodSync (personal)


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## niksddr (Jul 23, 2021)

raindog308 said:


> Tarsnap is awesome but expensive. I use it for a few critical things (my PasswordSafe files, etc.)
> 
> I wrote an article for Linux Journal about it: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tarsnap-line-backups-truly-paranoid
> 
> Got to interview Dr. Percival - great guy.


Thanks for Great Info Sir!


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## visualwebtechnologies (Apr 13, 2022)

Wasabi is also good option


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## stromonic (Apr 14, 2022)

JetBackup + Remote Storage Server (for all servers) and Daily Server Snapshots.


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## JonathanKW (Apr 14, 2022)

stromonic said:


> JetBackup + Remote Storage Server (for all servers) and Daily Server Snapshots.



+1 for JetBackup and remote storage solutions.

JetBackup has become an industry staple across both cPanel and DirectAdmin platforms while providing a non-panel version too.

Can't recommend it enough. If you want to diversify your backup process while having more granular control, JetBackup is the way to go.


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## n3m0 (Apr 21, 2022)

back years ago, i used rsync, but now JetBackup is the best option for my need so far


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## Jack134 (May 21, 2022)

Currently I'm using Bacula one of the best backup solution.


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## greenwebpage (Jun 12, 2022)

R1soft and JetBackup is the best solutions


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