BackupPC #4 - Configuration Tweaks

While I wait for the desktop machine backup started in part 3 to finish (it's really taking a lot of processor time on the desktop machine), I was reading through the configuration file and decided to change a few things.

First, to limit when the backups run, I changed the wakeup schedule, which was originally set to once an hour, to only run at 2:00 AM.

$Conf{WakeupSchedule} = [2];

Next, I adjusted the number of simultaneous backups allowed so that I wouldn't overload the backup machine's old, slow processor.

$Conf{MaxBackups} = 2;

Finally, I noticed that files in the initial backup weren't compressed. I found that the compression level was set to 0, which means no compression. I changed it to the recommended value of 3.

$Conf{CompressLevel} = 3;

The docs say that a perl library called Compress::Zlib is required for compression to work. I'll have to see if it is loaded.

UPDATE: Apparently, the compression library is available, because a fresh full backup of the backup server achieved 73% compression. While that was running, I added two more desktops to the list. I'm going to refrain from starting the first backups manually, and instead let the auto job pick them up at 2:00. I'll check the status in the AM.

I found another tutorial on the Debian Help site that doesn't mention using public/private keys for rsync use. I'll give it a read and maybe try another configuration for the file server backup.

I can't wait until part 5!