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nixCraft

5 Awesome Open Source Backup Software For Linux

and Unix-like Systems
by nixCraft on November 6, 2014 0 comments LAST UPDATED November 6, 2014

in Open Source

A good backup plan is essential in order to have the ability to recover from

Human errors
RAID or disk failure
File system corruption
Data center destruction and more.

In this post I'm going to list amazingly awesome open source Backup software for you.
What to look for when choosing backup software for an enterprise?
Make sure the following features are supported backup software you deploy:

1. Open source software - You must use software for which the original source code is made freely available and may
be and modified. This ensures that you can recover your data in case vendor/project stopped working on software or
refused to provide patches.
2. Cross-platform support - Make sure backup software works well on the OS deployed on all desktop and server
operating systems.
3. Data format - Open data format ensures that you can recover data in case vendor or project stopped working on
software.
4. Autochangers - Autochangers are nothing but a variety of backup devices, including library, near-line storage, and
autoloader. Autochangers allows you to automate the task of loading, mounting, and labeling backup media such as
tape.
5. Backup media - Make sure you can backup data on tape, disk, DVD and in cloud storage such as AWS.
6. Encryption datastream - Make sure all client-to-server traffic will be encrypted to ensure transmission integrity over
the LAN/WAN/Internet.
7. Database support - Make sure backup software can backup database server such as MySQL or Oracle.
8. Backup span multiple volumes - Backup software can split each backup (dumpfile) into a series of parts, allowing
for different parts to existing on different volumes. This ensures that large backups (such as 100TB file) can be stored
on larger than a single backup device such as disk or tape volume.
9. VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) - It is Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and it is used to create
snapshots of data that is to be backed up. Make sure backup software support VSS for MS-Windows client/server.
10. Deduplication - It is a data compression technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data (for example,
images).
11. License and cost - Make sure you understand and use of open source license under which the original backup
software is made available to you.
12. Commercial support - Open source software can provide community based (such as email list or fourm) or
professional (such as subscriptions provided at additional cost) based support. You can use paid professional support
for training and consulting purpose.
13. Reports and alerts - Finally, you must able to see backup reports, current job status, and get alert when something
goes wrong while making backups.

Bacula - Client/server backup tool for heterogeneous networks

I personally use this software to manage backup and recovery across a network of computers including Linux, OSX and
Windows. You can configure it via a CLI, GUI or web interface.
 Operating system : Cross-platform

Backup Levels : Full, differential, incremental, and consolidation.

Data format: Custom but fully open.

Autochangers: Yes

Backup media: Tape/Disk/DVD

Encryption datastream: Yes

Database support: M SSQL/PostgreSQL/Oracle/

Backup span multiple volumes: Yes

VSS: Yes

License : Affero General Public License v3.0

Download url : bacula.org

Amanda - Another good client/server backup tool

AMANDA is an acronym for Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver. It allows the sysadmin to set up a
single backup server to back up other hosts over network to tape drives or disk or authchangers.
 Operating system : Cross-platform

Backup Levels : Full, differential, incremental, and consolidation.

Data format: Open (can be recovered using tool such as tar).

Autochangers: Yes

Backup media: Tape/Disk/DVD

Encryption datastream: Yes

Database support: M SSQL/Oracle

Backup span multiple volumes: Yes

VSS: Yes

License : GPL, LGPL, Apache, Amanda License

Download url : amanda.org

Backupninja - Lightweight backup system

Backupninja is a simple and easy to use backup system. You can simply drop a config files into /etc/backup.d/ to backup
multiple hosts.

Operating system : Linux/Unix

Backup Levels : Full and incremental (rsync+hard links)

Data format: Open

Autochangers: N/A
 Backup media: Disk/DVD/CD/ISO images

Encryption datastream: Yes (ssh) and encrypted remote backups via duplicity

Database support: M ySQL/PostgreSQL/OpenLDAP and subversion or trac repositories.

Backup span multiple volumes: ??

VSS: ??

License : GPL

Download url : riseup.net

Backuppc - High-performance client/server tool

Backuppc is can be used to backup Linux and Windows based systems to a master server's disk. It comes with a clever
pooling scheme minimizes disk storage, disk I/O and network I/O.

Operating system : Linux/Unix and Windows

Backup Levels : Full and incremental (rsync+hard links and pooling scheme)

Data format: Open

Autochangers: N/A

Backup media: Disk/RAID storage

Encryption datastream: Yes

Database support: Yes (via custom shell scripts)

 Backup span multiple volumes: ??

VSS: ??

License : GPL

Download url : backuppc.sourceforge.net

UrBackup - Easy to setup client/server system

It is an easy to setup open source client/server backup system, that through a combination of image and file backups
accomplishes both data safety and a fast restoration time. Your files can be restored through the web interface or the
Windows Explorer while the backups of drive volumes can be restored with a bootable CD or USB-Stick (bare metal
restore). A web interface makes setting up your own backup server really easy.

Operating system : Linux/FreeBSD/Unix/Windows/several Linux based NAS operating systems. Client only runs on Linux and Windows.

Backup Levels : Full and incremental

Data format: Open

Autochangers: N/A

Backup media: Disk/Raid storage/DVD

Encryption datastream: Yes

Database support: ??

Backup span multiple volumes: ??

VSS: ??

License : GPL v3+

 Download url : urbackup.org

Other awesome open source backup software for your consideration

The Amanda, Bacula and above-mentioned software are feature rich but can be complicated to set for small network or a
single server. I recommend that you study and use the following backup software:

1. Rsnapshot - I recommend this tool for local and remote filesystem snapshot utility. See how to set and use this tool on
Debian/Ubuntu Linux and CentOS/RHEL based systems.
2. rdiff-backup - Another great remote incremental backup tool for Unix-like systems.
3. Burp - Burp is a network backup and restore program. It uses librsync in order to save network traffic and to save on
the amount of space that is used by each backup. It also uses VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) to make
snapshots when backing up Windows computers.
4. Duplicity - Great encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup for Unix-like system. See how to Install Duplicity for
encrypted backup in cloud for more infomation.
5. SafeKeep - SafeKeep is a centralized and easy to use backup application that combines the best features of a mirror
and an incremental backup.
6. DREBS - DREBS is a tool for taking periodic snapshots of EBS volumes. It is designed to be run on the EC2 host
which the EBS volumes to be snapshoted are attached.
7. Old good unix programs like rsync, tar, cpio, mt and dump.

Conclusion

I hope you will find this post useful to backup your important data. Do not forgot to verify your backups and make multiple
backup copies of your data. Also, RAID is not a backup solution. Use any one of the above-mentioned programs to backup
your servers, desktop/laptop and personal mobile devices. If you know of any other open source backup software I didn't
mention, share them in the comments below.

Tagged as: Backups, Linux, Microsoft, OS X, Unix

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7 Comments nixCraft Blog Login

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Join the discussion

Rajgopal 6 days ago

I like rsnapshot for Linux to Linux backup. I have automated backup process in some of the critical servers.
Beauty is, it is fast and easy to restore.
2 Reply Share

Nilesh 6 days ago

rsnapshot is the best, very easy to configure.
Just deploy rsyncd (with restricted firewall access, of course) on each source you want to backup (in case
of network) and let it rsync to another machine.

From that machine you can run tar and upload elsewhere.
2 Reply Share

Johan Bjreholt 6 days ago

Don't forget back in time!
1 Reply Share

Mike Hanby 5 days ago

Don't leave out Ghetto-Timemachine :-) https://github.com/flakrat/ghe...
Reply Share

Wd40 5 days ago

There is one very cool solution but unfortunetly not open source. It's a RAID that has evolved. I mean
logical volume mirroring on AIX. Data can be mirrored across datacenters far away from each other (up to
~250KM). This can be easily administered. I'd really love to see such thing in Linux. There is something
alike already but i didn't test it yet. This is not a substitute of backups but really helps.
Another thing in AIX is mksysb which is a backup solution that makes a bootable image of the operating
system ready for a full or partial restore. There are similar solutions on Linux like REAR and Mondo
Backup. I guess their reporting features are not too rich but it can save a ton of time if used.
Reply Share

Andrea 5 days ago

did you take into consideration bareos?
 Reply Share

Andrea 6 days ago

What about bareos?
Reply Share

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