AFFA Remote Archiving Backup

Secure Off-site Linux Server Archiving Backup

AFFA stands for; Automatische Festplatten FernArchivierung

Affa features at a glance

  • Affa is secure: All transfers and connections are made by using the ssh protocol with public/private key authentication
  • Periodically runs unattended full backups. Only differences to the previous full backup are transferred over the network
  • Using rsync with optional bandwidth limit and compression allows backups over the internet
  • Uses hardlink technique, i.e. physical disk space only needed for the differences between two full backups
  • Keeps a configurable number of scheduled, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly full backup archives
  • The archives are browseable. No need to unpack them first.
  • Archives can be mapped to a Samba share.
  • Backup jobs are started by the cron daemon
  • Interrupted jobs continuing with already transfered data when restarted
  • Backups the default e-smith directories and files, when property SMEServer is set to yes
  • Additional directories and files can be included
  • Directories and files can be excluded from the backup
  • Non-SME server linux systems can be backed up by setting the SMEServer property to no and using an include list
  • In ESXi mode, running virtual machines can be backed up. See Backup of ESXi Virtual Machines using Affa
  • Configurable nice level for rsync processes on the backup and source server
  • Optional run of custom programs before and after a job run (e.g. running tape backup)
  • Checks the disk space left after a job run with warning levels strict, normal or risky
  • Extensive checking of failure conditions
  • Sends failure messages to a configurable list of email addresses
  • Sends a warning message, if the backup server runs out of disk space
  • Installs an optional watchdog on the source server in case the backupserver fails (SME Server only)
  • Watchdog sends warning, if an expected backup did not run (SME Server only)
  • Watchdog sends a daily reminder message, if the error continues unchecked (SME Server only)
  • Option to display current status of all jobs showing times of last and next run, size and disk usage
  • Status can be mailed on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule
  • Option to display all existing archives of a job shown date, number of files, size and bytes tranferred from the source
  • Option to send (and revoke) the public key to the source server (SME Server and ESXi only)
  • Option to rise the backup server to a production server from a backup (SME Server only)
  • The rise feature does not physically move data and therefore is extremely fast and needs (almost) no extra disk space
  • Rise option can be run remotely as the NIC driver configuration of the backup server are preserved
  • Compares installed RPMs on source with backup server. Sends warning message, if not in sync
  • Undo rise option to restore the backup server
  • Configurable via a e-smith style db, with one record for each job and a default record for all jobs
  • Logs to /var/log/affa/JOB.log and /var/log/affa/affa.log with optional debug switch for higher verbosity
  • Log files are rotated weekly, with 5 logs kept