No mention on the website, is it possible to schedule backups?
Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
41–50 of 138 posts
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#42The state of backup tech is surprisingly bad, and runs OS deep. Even with modern solutions like restic, you have no guarantee of a consistent backup[0] unless you pair it with a filesystem that supports snapshots like btrfs, ZFS, etc, which basically no one other than power users are even aware of. Interestingly, Windows ships snapshot support by default[1], but you need admin privileges to use it. Also, it's unclear…
For database, in my experience, is better to dump the whole database and backup the dump for the reasons you explained
Depends on your database size, type, change rate, etc. Dumping the database to a file is fine for toy and small cases, but not for a 1+TB store that's under heavy writes.
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#43The state of backup tech is surprisingly bad, and runs OS deep. Even with modern solutions like restic, you have no guarantee of a consistent backup[0] unless you pair it with a filesystem that supports snapshots like btrfs, ZFS, etc, which basically no one other than power users are even aware of. Interestingly, Windows ships snapshot support by default[1], but you need admin privileges to use it. Also, it's unclear…
Filesystem snapshot for database is not different than database crash. Databases are designed to handle crashes well (WAL etc.).
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#44The state of backup tech is surprisingly bad, and runs OS deep. Even with modern solutions like restic, you have no guarantee of a consistent backup[0] unless you pair it with a filesystem that supports snapshots like btrfs, ZFS, etc, which basically no one other than power users are even aware of. Interestingly, Windows ships snapshot support by default[1], but you need admin privileges to use it. Also, it's unclear…
> Also, it's unclear to me what happens if you attempt a snapshot in the middle of something like a database transaction or even a basic file write. Seems likely that the snapshot would still be corrupted.
You just quiesce the database first. Any decent backup engine has support to talk to a DB and pause / flush everything.
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#45How does it compare with Arq Backup (for Mac)? It's a bummer that Arq has still not added support for Azure.
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#46CTRL+F "tape" "lto" - 0 results.
I know that Tape Backups are not hip and sexy, but CloudNordic showed us just last month why they still matter even in 2023 and beyond, so you'd definitely want to look at an additional solution for your large servers, with a proper rotation/retention strategy (e.g., GFS). You _need_ offline backups, if you think you don't, you just got lucky for now - or have data that can be recreated from other sources.
For an online hot/warm solution, I'd use sending ZFS Snapshots into a backup server to then compress and encrypt them there, though keep in mind that for running systems, it may still not be enough (e.g., backing up a running Postgresql server through a file system snapshot may not be enough - there's an entire section in the documentation about backup options).
That said, it's good to have more options, and you really want to use something for your personal stuff as well, so the more options there are, and the more user-friendly/turnkey they are, the better!
Just be aware that backup solutions in a corporate/network environment are more complicated than just copying some files across. And also remember: Good companies test their backups - but great companies test their restores.
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#47Can someone please help decide what is the "best" backup software? - Restic ( https://restic.net/ ) - Borg backup ( https://www.borgbackup.org/ ) - Duplicati ( https://www.duplicati.com/ ) - Kopia ( https://kopia.io/ ) - Duplicay ( https://duplicacy.com/ ) - Duplicity ( https://duplicity.us/ )
Bacula I've tried all of these, and none are as reliable or powerful as Bacula. It's way more complex at first, but you will have peace of mind. And backup/restore speed is way faster. You can even easily setup automatic restore jobs to prove your backups work!
Do you know how Bacula compares to Bareos? Bacula is on my to-do list to look at (also because I need tape backups), but the Bareos fork seems to have a more modern interface - but I've not stress tested either solution. The fact that Bacula has a Debian package and Bareos does not pretty much settles it already, but just curious if someone has actually tried both.
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#48I was using Vorta/Borgbase until I discovered that Vorta had an issue with restores. Kopia is pretty neat, but make sure you test as always.
What was the problem with restores?
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#49Hm interesting name, I spent a few seconds on the site to figure out origin but no luck. "Kopia" means "copy" in Swedish and probably more Nordic languages, too. Very hard to pronounce in English so it would be interesting to hear it said.
Kopia also means a copy in Polish and the author is Polish. The first paragraph in the software's Github page also confirms the Polish origin of the name: https://github.com/kopia/kopia/ Tangentially, as far as OSS names of Polish go, kopia is pretty tame. A popular deduplicating app is named czkawka (hiccup). Now that choice is just mean towards non-Polish speakers. :)
> as far as OSS names of Polish go, kopia is pretty tame
Well indeed.
There's a project on GitHub with 1.7k stars called GitKurwa[1].
Now that's proper untame Polish. ;-)
Re: Kopia: Fast and secure open-source backup software
#50I've been using Kopia for my personal use and for products I have helped build at a couple of enterprise backup companies! It's also used by other open-source backup projects that focus on specific ecosystems (Velero and Kanister for Kubernetes, Corso for Microsoft 365 backup). I am obviously biased but it's pretty amazing. AMA.
Can you compare vs eg Duplicati? Do you (sorry, but just checking) repeatedly test backups? Eg pull monthly and bit verify that they're correct? Are you aware of anyone testing in this way? Thanks so much!
I haven't looked at duplicati in a while and, it has evolved. While Duplicati's feature set looks similar now, I would need to benchmark it both for efficiency and final backup sizes.
And, while not directly, I know a number of companies, including mine, do test restores all the time.