Centralized backup server (with clients)? - eviltoast

Does anyone have recommendations for centralized backup servers that use the server/client model?

My backups are relatively simple in that I use rsync to pull everything from remote machines to a single server and then run restic on that server to back them up and also copy that backup to cloud storage.

I’ve been looking at some other software again like Bacula/Bareos/UrBackup and wondering if anyone’s currently using one of them or something like it that they like?

Ideally I’m looking for a more user-friendly polished interface for managing backups across multiple servers and desktops/laptops. I’m testing Bareos now, but it’ll probably not work out since the web ui doesn’t allow adding new jobs/volumes/etc.

    • johntashOPEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Borg is great, I actually switched from borg to restic because borg would index everything before backing up the files. Restic starts backing up while indexing is still happening. Not a huge deal normally, but it mattered a lot when it’d take 8+ hours to index lots of tiny files on a couple servers.

      • Eideen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I never experienced it been slow.

        Normally the hard drives and network is slower the Borg.

        Have you reported the use case to the Borg backup developer’s?

        • johntashOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          There were related github issues open, but not opened by me. It wasn’t that borg itself was slow, but it was more to do with the number of files being backed up. Even a simple find . -type f would take hours. My problem with it was that borg wouldn’t start uploading data until that indexing finished.

          Restic immediately started uploading while it was still indexing so it cut the overall backup time way down.

          If it took 4 hours to index files and then 4 hours to upload those files, borg would total 8 hours while restic was only 4 hours total.

          This was something like 10TB and hundreds of millions of files though. I never had an issue with borg on smaller datasets.

    • johntashOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Added Kopia to my list, thanks! It doesn’t look like it has a centralized management console, but that’s probably alright if I only use it for desktops/laptops and not servers/vms.

      • VerifiablyMrWonka@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        When it’s running in server mode it provides a similar UI too when it’s a client, except now you can browse the snapshots/policies of each client that uses it.

        Not quite full management but yeah, good for home use.

    • johntashOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m looking for a solution for both servers and clients. I do have nextcloud and could use it to sync files from some of the client machines to a server that gets backed up, but I haven’t had a lot of luck with the nextcloud cli in the past. It also doesn’t preserve things like ownership/permissions :(

  • MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Urbackup is ok. Veeam has a free version for 10 clients but it only runs on windows and is really poorly made so it sucks down resources.

  • Wingy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I use Restic for servers, Kopia for desktops. Restic tends to end up with problematic locks on systems that shutdown uncleanly sometimes.

    • johntashOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Another comment recommended Kopia, I’ve been testing it out on a desktop and one vm and it seems good so far. Was there a reason you aren’t using Kopia on the servers too?

      I use restic for servers currently, but might try kopia since having a basic web ui is kind of nice to see what’s being backed up.

      • Wingy@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I have more experience with Restic so I’m more comfortable with it on servers, but the lock files don’t work properly on desktops that shutdown uncleanly.