Disk Backups

Almost all essential data is stored on a ZFS server, which is accessed by NFS and SMB. ZFS allows to synchronize dataset changes to remote systems which hold mirrors of the primary datasets. We us this technique to implement backups to two backup systems, one located in the local network running multiple backups per day, and one located at GITZ running one backup each night.

Users do not have to care about these backups, in general. What could be of interest, is the ZFS snapshot capability: At each root directory of a ZFS filesystem, there is a "hidden" directory .zfs (you cannot see it in a directory listing, but you can access and "cd" into it). Within that directory you will find regular snapshots, which represent former read-only copies of the filesystem. You can use these snapshots to restore accidentally removed or modified filesystem content.

Apple TimeMachine

MacOS users can use a special Samba server for TimeMachine backups. If you want to use this service, please contact Frank Steinberg.