From the course: Career Essentials in System Administration by Microsoft and LinkedIn

Backing up Linux and Macintosh

From the course: Career Essentials in System Administration by Microsoft and LinkedIn

Backing up Linux and Macintosh

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- Linux and Macs have very similar operating systems and can be backed up using the same programs if desired. You can use native programs built into each computer's OS or you can use third-party programs like Backup Exec, Veeam or Commvault, among others. You can back up to a local storage device, such as a USB drive, or you can back up to another computer, a NAS or a SAN device. You can use a drive share or even a DVD burner. There are many options from which to choose. One of the more popular backup programs for Linux is called Remote Sync, or Rsync for short. This is a free utility that comes with every full Linux distribution. I say full because some are very stripped down versions used for IoT devices or for secure appliances that don't need additional software that may cause issues. Rsync is a command line tool, but some developers have put various graphical user shells on top of it. Rsync works incrementally at the block level on a file by file basis. This means if we change just two characters in a one megabyte text file, only one or two blocks will be transferred across the land on the next sync. This is very efficient and one of the reasons why it's so popular. Another option for backups would be creating an image. Data description, or DD, backup has also been around for many years. You can create bootable images of an entire disc that can be moved to another computer or hard drive. There are many other backup tools on Linux as well, but they vary by Linux distribution. There are thousands of Linux distributions that are all used for various purposes, but some of the core backup applications can be found on almost all of them. Macs can also be backed up using many different utilities, but by far, the most preferred is Time Machine. Time Machine comes with your Mac and can be used very easily by attaching a drive and then click to backup using the graphical utility. You can also schedule backups and make some general changes to preferences. Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disc is full. The first backup might take longer because it will be a full backup. Incremental backups will only backup files that have changed. Backing up Linux and Macs are very different from Windows computers, but they can all be easily done through command line or graphical interface.

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