Backup a Linux server to a Windows PC while preserving user, group and permissions
I moved my sites to a new virtual server at Carrot Server. Their offer is (imho) better than the one over at HostEurope, however there are some downsides: they don't have a rescue system yet (you better watch your step!) and there's no backup included.
I can live without the rescue system, but no backup? No way.
Since I don't have a dedicated Linux box around at home, I needed to store the backup on my Windows PC. There's a problem with storing files from a Unix system on Windows though: You'll lose the owner, group and permission data for the files, since the file systems supported by Windows can't store this information. A backup without this metadata is useless, though.
Finding a solution
Some kind of container solution was needed. Tar archives support Unix permissions, however packing all files into a huge tar file would require transferring all data on every backup run. My internet connection at home is not T1, so transferring all data every time I do a backup is probably not a good idea (and it's perfectly useless, too).
There's rsync — the state-of-the-art tool to transfer only the changes (yes, changes, not only changed files; very useful if you have some multiple GB files around). So combining rsync and tar seems the way to go.
I could have packed all files into a huge tarball and rsynced it to my PC (effectively only tranferring the changes), but that would mean the tarball would need to be stored at the server (at least temporarily). Now imagine the disk is 95% full and you're trying to pack the whole filesystem — we have a problem here.
Fortunately I'm not the first one facing this problem: Thanassis Tsiodras outlines a way to backup your Linux server preserving permissions to a Windows PC using a loop-mounted file system on a Samba share.
This technique would require a Linux box, though. Bummer! (If I had a Linux box around, I'd backup to it directly).
GeSHify update
GeSHify, the syntax highlighting extension for ExpressionEngine has been updated.
I updated my ExpressionEngine extension GeSHify. New features are a French translation (thanks to Fabien Amann) and a German translation (which I did myself). Packaged with GeSHify 0.3.6.1 are GeSHi 1.0.7.22 and GeSHi 1.1.2alpha4dev (both checked out from the release branches of GeSHi’s SourceForge.net Subversion repository).
Since I switched from getting the releases of GeSHi manually to using svn:externals definitions I no longer have to download the GeSHi releases manually — they will be pulled from the SourceForge Subversion servers on every update. Using this technique it is technically possible to automate building new GeSHify packages as soon as a new GeSHi version is released (and I will probably set this up soon).
Proceed to download.
I took it! And so should you
A List Apart has published the 2008 survey for people who make websites. If you work in the web business, you should go ahead and take the survey as well.
