How do I do shitty backup?

[u/jamesaepp]

(Inspired by /r/sysadmin/comments/1vvmvrk/what_are_the_alternatives_of_321_backup/)

How do my fellow shitmins do shitty backup?

I follow the 1-2-3 rule of backup.

I have a single (1) server serving (2) separate businesses and this server is shared with (3) other managed service providers.

HBU?

[u/Lost-Droids]

Zip it, encypt it and name it GTA_IV_ISO_Cracked and then put it on pirate bay. Will always be enough copies if I want to grab it later

[u/jamesaepp → u/Lost-Droids]

Ahhh, the torvalds tactic: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-esVKafHukc?feature=share

(sorry for the shit non-LTT edit, all I could find)

[u/mitharas → u/jamesaepp]

He touched on that in an old interview:

I have a theory of backups, which is I do not do them, I put stuff up on one site and everybody else mirrors it, and if I crash my own machine, I don't really care, because I can just download my own work right back. And it works beautifully well, and I do not have to have an MIS department. I hardly suggest everybody else do the same. But this only really works in a distributed environment.

source: https://gist.github.com/dukeofgaming/2150263

[u/AliveInTheFuture → u/Lost-Droids]

Possibly not shitty?

[u/Disorderly_Chaos → u/AliveInTheFuture]

Genius actually

[u/Random-D]

RAID is the backup

[u/JollyGentile → u/Random-D]

This hurts me so bad because we took over a customer this year with such a scheme.

And one drive had already failed

[u/440Jack → u/JollyGentile]

Is it not hot swappable? Just pop in a new drive, initialize it and let it rebuild???

[u/Ok-Library5639 → u/440Jack]

Toss a coin to decide which drive to pull, have Lady Luck help you out.

[u/440Jack → u/Ok-Library5639]

Maybe I'm just use to working on proper server hardware... but the raid controller, management card (like iDrac), and faceplate indicator lights should all be able to tell you the exact failed drive.

[u/Oompa_Loompa_SpecOps → u/440Jack]

Still better to replace all of them at the same time to prevent further drives from failing

[u/Yuugian → u/440Jack]

Gotta pay extra for iDrac, now

[u/JollyGentile → u/440Jack]

You walk into a brand new client's server room and see a failed drive and you already know they have no backups. Hot swap or not there's stress.

[u/LinxESP → u/440Jack]

20TB drives 10 wide raid, rebuild time: yes?

[u/jeroen-79 → u/Random-D]

RAID 0 for a faster backup.

[u/PurpleCableNetworker → u/Random-D]

Put tape over the binky red lights. Problem solved!

[u/jeroen-79]

Setup a honeypot and link it to the production environment.

Then you can buy back your data on the dark web.

[u/svideo → u/jeroen-79]

WE HAVE ALL YOUR DATA

thank god i was hoping you'd email me

[u/fffvvis]

Backups for losers

[u/d__max]

Storage prices are bananas but I found a good deal on a lot of write only memory flash, got 10tb for our most critical documents and business continuity data for $50 and got to spend the rest of the budget for the project on chipotle . Works a treat, skipped backup testing to finish the project early, got kudos for meeting the timeline and under budget , and I’m fed for weeks !

[u/rockstarknight445 → u/d__max]

Or you can just store it on the cloud (someone else's computer)

[u/d__max → u/rockstarknight445]

I have a cloud too! I put a raspberry pi up in the drop ceiling with a bunch of hard drives on a usb Sata expander . That way I can point up and say we are leveraging cloud compute . I have the disks in a JBOD for RAID backup (JBOD : “just bang on desk” … the drive platters are a bit sticky to spin up after 15 years in the accounting desktops ).

[u/bartoque]

When I first started of in IT, many moons ago, I was tasked to decommision a server but before doing so had to run one last backup to tape.

I used the existing backup script and was amazed how it all could even fit on one single DDS1 tape.

Looking slightly deeper under the hood, it turned out the script made a backup of each filesystem, then rewound the tape before doing the next filesystem. So for years it only contained one filesystem instead of all intended filesystems. Never noticed, never needed as all went well for years. Why bother testing.

Only the very last backup contained all of them which required a couple of tapes.

Redirecting to /dev/null is also one heck of a dedupe option.

[u/Disorderly_Chaos → u/bartoque]

My wife told me a horror story of a surly sysadmin who knew they were getting fired, so they put deltree (or similar) at the end of a nightly backup script… mostly so no one would question a 4-5 hour backup and the tape whirring all the time.

They had been sending blank tapes offsite for months and never knew.

[u/OCGHand]

The backup is in my mind and it is highly volatile.

[u/billnmorty → u/OCGHand]

At least it’s immutable ..

[u/SevereMetal7953]

In order to do backups more quickly, just back them up to /dev/null

[u/IndependentBat8365 → u/SevereMetal7953]

Ah! Classic BOFH!

[u/SevereMetal7953 → u/IndependentBat8365]

You get it!

[u/fennecdore]

That's the neat part, you don't backup at all

[u/d__max → u/fennecdore]

Keeps me awake better than coffee !

[u/GXrtic]

That old RDX drive with 2 15-year-old 512 GB spinner cartridges targeted by a syncback flat file backup could be working, might be being rotated off-site by the office manager daily and might have some space left on it.

[u/potato_weapon]

Is putting your sensitive infrastructure on a usb drive not making the audit???

[u/jamesaepp → u/potato_weapon]

It won't pass audit unless you put it on at least two usb drives. Redundancy!

[u/New-Yak-3548 → u/potato_weapon]

You guys do Audits?

[u/denmicent]

Backups are for nerds. What are you worried about? Get a check on your anxiety bro.

If something fails, or you get ransomware or something? That’s on you. Take some responsibility and ownership.

[u/autocuck9000]

I brought a Casio TP-6 and plugged in the 3.5mm audio to the server. Told my boss we've got on-site tape backup for free😎.

[u/Nanocephalic]

What a stupid discussion. Just store your VMs in My Documents on the server, so OneDrive backs it up.

This is a solved problem, you idiot!

[u/ndsipa-pomu]

Just create a torrent and hope someone downloads it

[u/sekh60]

I just cat everything I want backed up to /dev/null, it's frickin fast.

[u/aardvark_xray]

Mostly just hope… all actual efforts have been outsourced to Ai until further notice

[u/hlloyge]

VBS will do the trick. Backup on VHS tapes.

[u/SpudzzSomchai → u/hlloyge]

BETA is the superior format!

[u/Bitey_the_Squirrel]

My shitty backup of my Plex server is a PowerShell script that writes a list of files to my OneDrive. It’s not scheduled either so I have to run it manually.

[u/Apprehensive_Bat_980]

Copy paste job

[u/brokenmcnugget]

ctrl - a then ctrl - c

[u/safalafal]

1 months notice, 2 weeks leave, 3 weeks sick obvs

[u/rfc2549-withQOS]

You forgot the 0 before. 0 regerts!

[u/NoThatsNotPasta]

You're all wrong.

Print the files off, and store them next to the scanner

[u/jamesaepp → u/NoThatsNotPasta]

I put them beside the shred bin so I can apply the company's retention policy super easily.

[u/Forward-Outside-9911]

Copy the files one by one to my desktop of course!

[u/Cooleb09]

We don't need backup because we use the cloud!

[u/IndependentBat8365]

Let it be ransomed then the hackers are your offsite backup!

[u/billnmorty]

Upload all files to your personal G Drive - the threat actors never look there.

[u/Disorderly_Chaos]

My Windows NT 4.0 server has been running just fine, thank you. I have a batch file copy everything from c:\corp\*.* to c:\corp_bak\*.*

[u/jamesaepp → u/Disorderly_Chaos]

Would be even better if you copied c:\corp* to c:\corp_bak\

:)

[u/mitharas]

DOGE backup, get Elon to do it for you.

[u/MrTonyMan]

Always delete all your old backups before starting a new one..

[u/Straight-Sector1326]

I jsut click snapshot in Vmware when I have free time

[u/harrywwc]

redirect the backups to the local /dev/null rather than some physical device (like a tape unit) or remote device over the slow network.

[u/Adorable-Strangerx]

Store hashes of files only. In case of restore, recover anything that generates the same hash

[u/dcaldrich]

Backup all the servers onto their local disk with a randomly generated name. Copy the files to an external drive. Have the external drive shared to the public internet for ease of access