No, I dont't think I really want to know, what this is all about.

If anybody cares to find out, drop a note in the comments. Thank you... I think...

via Dave Barry

While I've got plenty of "big stuff" to do, such as finally finishing the Datenschleuder, get over with my bookkeeping so I can file my income taxes or finish the finaly version of a website design which is due Tuesday, I just don't seem to get some consecutive quality time in, these days.

Clients with emergencies (luckily just little ones, nothing of Cryx's encounter today or this) or simply plain old family matters or the correlation of the lack of contents of our fridge to the opening hours of our local supermarket.

So what to do, if all you get are little bits of time? Well, I've picked up the habit of doing little things that are important but otherwise too little to stand a chance against the 'big things'.

As an example, I've just brushed up my backup-script for this host. It's running on my home server and makes daily backups of all configuration files of this server. So, just in case you, too would like to keep your tediously laboured config files safe (i.e. offsite!) you can use the following shell-script snippet as a starting point:

#!/bin/sh

BACKUP_HOME="/home/tomster/backups"
BACKUP_DIRNAME="tomster.org-backup"
BACKUP_DIR=$BACKUP_HOME"/"$BACKUP_DIRNAME

ARCHIVE_DIRNAME="tomster.org-archive"

RSYNC_BIN="/usr/local/bin/rsync"

echo 'syncing /usr/local/etc';
$RSYNC_BIN -vrpoge ssh tomster@tomster.org:/usr/local/etc/ \
   $BACKUP_DIR/usr/local/etc

echo 'syncing /etc';
$RSYNC_BIN -vrpoge ssh tomster@tomster.org:/etc/ \
   $BACKUP_DIR/etc

echo 'syncing mailman lists';
$RSYNC_BIN -vrpoge ssh tomster@tomster.org:/usr/local/mailman/lists/ \
   $BACKUP_DIR/usr/local/mailman/lists


ARCHIVE_FILE=$BACKUP_HOME"/"$ARCHIVE_DIRNAME"/"\
   `date "+%Y-%m-%d"`".tgz";
echo 'creating archive '$ARCHIVE_FILE;

tar czf $ARCHIVE_FILE -C $BACKUP_HOME $BACKUP_DIRNAME

It keeps a synchronized tree of /etc, /usr/local/etc and /usr/local/mailman/lists in a designated target directory and creates a .tgz archive of each sync that it makes in another one, labelling it with the date of the snapshot. Very simply, but very useful.

In order for this to work, the user executing this script must have a key-based log-in on the target host using a key without a passphrase. To make the script run automatically on a regular basis, save the script in ~/bin/backup.sh and install the following crontab using crontab -e

MAILTO=your@email.adr
@daily ~/bin/backup.sh

Sorry, still busy hacking the next Datenschleuder. Fortunately, I'm in good company (also, Erdgeist is with me, compiling images and readers letters and chock full with good advice.)

As a little teaser, I offer you one of Fefe's contributions to this issue. A series of photos from Beirut, where telecommunication is... uhm...

Anyway, back to work.

Sunday night. (Almost) all chores done (except taxes & book-keeping...) I've used up all of my excuses. I've finally installed that daapd server, I've always been meaning to. (Great stuff, btw!) Thanks to Cryx and MacOSXHints!

I've finally set up the backup scripts for my IMAP server again after having had a complete re-install of the backup machine's OS (from RedHat 7.1 to FreeBSD, of course!) The main machine (this one) and the backup machine reside in two different networks, both of which belong to hosteurope. To make the initial backup took one hour and twenty minutes. That sounds like a long time, but not if you consider, that the size of the spool directory is 7.8Gb...

Then, of course, I had to update the cookbook. It now has a short, but (I hope so, anyway!) concise description of how to perform an automated, regular, incremental offsite backup of your cyrus installation.

And now I've really run out of excuses ;-)

I'm going to start layouting the next issue of the Datenschleuder! If this sounds, like I wouldn't enjoy doing it, don't let yourself be fooled: once I've gotten into it, it's one of the most fun and worthwhile things I can use my time and energy for!

They have got to be kidding. It's a joke, right?

via As The Apple Turns (scroll down, no anchor)