Create a command prompt loop Linux

Example:

[root@servername~ ]# while [ 1 ]
> do
> date;
> df –h |grep backup;
> sleep 600;
> done

This creates a loop that checks the disks mounted to the directories with the name “backup” and displays the date every ten minutes. This is useful to see the progress of a very large sync command on a ten minute basis. Obviously it can be changed for virtually any command.

Note: the “while [ 1 ]” basically means the while is always true, thus the “sleep 600” is required. Otherwise you would have an infinite loop just going crazy.

You can kill the output with ctrl-c

-Andy

Backuppc: Moving the pool

Here are the instructions to create a dual disk system using backuppc. This approach creates a "copy" of the pool data without RAID. I have two external USB drives, both 500 Gig here. The advantage (I think) of this method is that if a mistake is made or a disk crashes no rebuilding is needed, just a copy. Also, the second disk can be removed for safe keeping, all we need is a replacement disk (no rebuilding)


1). Stop backuppc:
/etc/init.d/backuppc stop

2). Sync the current default location to your new mount point excluding "pc" (USB device = /data1):
rsync -avPH --exclude=pc/ --delete /var/lib/backuppc/ /data1/backuppc/
(This creates all the data for backuppc in /data1/backuppc, the "H" preserves hard links)

3). Move the old location to a new file, just in case:
mv /var/lib/backuppc /var/lib/backuppc_old

4). Change the /data1 mount point in /etc/fstab to mount /var/lib/backuppc, here's the line:
before: /dev/sdc /data1/backuppc ext3 defaults 0 0
after: /dev/sdc /var/lib/backuppc ext3 defaults 0 0

5). If there's a second disk, setup a crontab with an rsync:
rsync -aPH --exclude=pc/ --delete /var/lib/backuppc/ /data2/backuppc/ >/dev/null 2>&1

6). Reboot and verify the disk(s) are mounted correctlty

7). Start backuppc, /etc/init.d/backuppc start

8). After a few days if all is working remove /var/lib/backuppc_old

Note: Rather than creating a symbolic link from /var/lib/backuppc to /data1/backuppc I opted to create a static mount point in /etc/fstab. This is more straightforward. When someone runs "df -k" they'll see the giant mount point at /var/lib/backuppc and hopefully notice that it's a USB device.

Formatting USB: You may also have to format the USB drive with "mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc". The device can be determined pretty easily with the Logical Volume Management Tool available in the GNOME GUI.

Further Note: Changing /etc/BackupPC/conf.pl and some of the files like "/usr/lib/BackupPC/Lib.pm" so the top directory is hard changed is NOT recommended. This is because someone else may update the backuppc package and the topDir will break.

-Andy

Coinfiguring a Sylog Server on Linux

Simple stuff, just no good resource out there:

1). Modify the line in /etc/syslog.conf from this:
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none /var/log/messages

To this
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none;local0.none /var/log/messages


2). Add the following two lines to the bottom of /etc/syslog.conf, the file “specialfilename” is the name of the new log:
# Firebox logs
local0.* /var/log/specialfilename

3). Modify /etc/syconfig/syslog so the”SYSLOGD_OPTIONS” look like this:
SYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-r -m 0"

4). Restart the syslog server:
[root@yourserver etc]# /etc/init.d/syslog restart
Shutting down kernel logger: [ OK ]
Shutting down system logger: [ OK ]
Starting system logger: [ OK ]
Starting kernel logger: [ OK ]

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