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Authored by: scrofa on Apr 23, '04 01:13:53PM
interesting....

I dropped Retrospect like a rock when I learned that it only supported internet archives via ftp. After 12 emails I finally contacted them by using up my free tech support call. When I asked them how I could back up my files to the internet securely, they said that it wasn't possible with Retrospect, nor was it a priority in the future.

Afterall, what good is a backup hard drive if your house burns down or you house is ropped (as mine was last month--the robbing, that is, not the burning down)?

So I dug into the command line. I have an rsync incremental backup which I run every night via cron (thanks to rsyncX and Macosxlabs it's even HFS+ and resource fork compatible!). I also run an archive script which copies the most vital files to a new folder, makes a compressed diskimage out of them (thus preserving the resource forks) and then copies them to my brother's bsd server via SCP.

Yep, and it only took about 10 months to figure out all the unix crap (ssh-keygen, ssh-agent, crontab, scp, hdiutil, etc...) to get the scripts working (hehe).

So I guess what I'm really trying to say is that Retrospect is fine if you just want to back up your stuff to a tape or external hard drive. But for a more comprehensive backup plan to safeguard against catastrophic loss of data (fire, theft, etc...) you should back up to a remote site. Retrospect fails in this category.



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Still Waiting!
Authored by: Kalak on Aug 11, '06 08:50:24AM

I was digging through looking for using a remote tape drive with tar, and I found your comment. It's old, but I thought I'd put the trick up.

You can tunnel the ftp from retrospect via an ssh tunnel iof you have ssh access on the destination server. I'm away from may main computer, or I'd give you the command line, but you tunnel ports 20 & 21, then point Retrospect to the localhost address, now tunneled via ssh to your destination. It's a hack, but possibly useful.

(rsync is a good resource too, but when backing up a Win/Mac workgroup to the other side of campus, Retrospect has it's uses too.)

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Kalak
I am, and always will be, an Idiot.



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