I have used rsnapshot a lot in the past to provide snapshots in time for my backup purposes, and I loved how I was able to to pull data from remote machines to backup locally. However, doing the reverse seemed to be a lot trickier. I wanted to pushbackups to a server instead of have the server pull data. Because when the server started its backup routine, some machines may be switched off. So rather than the server be responsible for backing up the clients, I wanted the clients to be responsible for backing themselves up onto the server itself.
rsnapshot didn’t seem to lend itself to easily to do this, but then I thought “why not use sshfs?”. With sshfs, I can mount a directory from a remote SSH server on the local filesystem as a directory, use that as a the snapshot root and it should work. The only downside is that since rsnapshot must run as root to do a full system file backup, it also means the sshfs must be mounted as root too, and therefore it tries to connect as root to the remote server. This might be fine if you wanted to do a full remote system backup, but enabling root SSH access is a potential security hole. Possible workaround this by making a standard user who is a member of the root or admin group (haven’t checked whether this would work yet.)
rdiff, for those unfamiliar with the term, is rsync diff (or reverse diff, depending on your school of thought.) It uses the rsync algorithm (the same used by rsnapshot) to create a diff file (or delta) which, when applied to a file, can produce another file - a bit like patching using a patch file. Since we only save the differences between a file and its other version, the actual storage space is low.
rsnapshot utilises hard links to store same versions of files across multiple backups, but has a full copy of each new version. rdiff-backup stores the latest version, and stores diffs that enable you to go back to a previous point in time.
In this sense, rsnapshot works like a full backup style, storing each new version in its entirety, whereas rdiff-backup works as full-plus-(reverse) differential. Restoring from the latest backup on either tool takes the same time, but restoring from an older backup would take longer for rdiff-backup, because it would have to assemble that particular version of the files via the diff files, whereas with rsnapshot, the full version is stored (although at the cost of more space). rdiff-backup works great for files which change often, but change only slightly. Rsnapshot works great for files which change rarely, but change entirely. Using a combination of both might be a good idea (say, use Rsnapshot for /home and rdiff-backup for /var and /etc)
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I am getting pretty peeved with Google recently. I have a huge amount of music on my Google Music library, so much in fact, that I hit Google’s track limit for uploads. Now, I’m trying to download my purchased music back to my machine, but their MusicManager is winding me up no end. It downloads for a while, then stops, thinking it has finished, with several tracks not downloaded. I restart the download, and it goes on a bit more then stop again.
Google suggested a few things, eventually ending up blaming my ISP. But there isn’t much alternative for me. Other than my current ISP, I can only use my corporate connection, but that requires a proxy - something Google do not support on MusicManager, or using Tor, which also doesn’t work properly. They suggested using the Google Music app, but that only works (if it ever does) on a single album.
I even tried using AWS and Google Cloud, but the app ties to MAC and refuses to identify my machine (which is a virtual machine). I also tried using an LXC contain, and that worked for a bit longer, but also died. So now, I’m trying using a Docker image. Slightly different concept, but lets see if it works.
If that doesn’t work, I’m going to try using TAILS.
EDIT: Docker image didn’t work. So anything with a “true” virtual environment such as AWS, GC, and Docker don’t seem to work (VirtualBox will probably be in this list too), anything else (LXC, e.g.) will work, but fail later.
It has been pretty depressing this month in terms of running. I have hardly done any running this month due to weather and work pretty much making me out. I’ve dropped in my rankings amongst friend on Nike+, and now sit 4th out of 12, with 6 still to log runs this month. My current mileage this month: 5.6km. Position 3: 10.4km, Position 2: 29.1km, Position 1: 32.6km
After a lot of fighting, I got my first Rainbowmon loot. This monster is unique in that it is not designed to be used to fight with, it is meant to be sacrificed to give EXP to other monsters. Find these monsters, and you can fast-track the levels on your team.
Do NOT believe everything you read in the papers. Especially those “shock horror” stories. This is why.
Last week the UK Home Office published the findings of its investigations into allegations of animal suffering, made after undercover infiltrations at two animal research facilities.
...
These “shocking exposés”, brought to the newspapers by the animal rights group BUAV, include distressing images, links to videos that are difficult to watch, and quote allegedly secretly recorded researchers saying terrible things about the animals in their care.
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The newspapers seem in no doubt that the allegations they are carrying add up to “appalling suffering on a very large scale”, and appear to be proud of their role in bringing the abuses to light: “The Sunday Express today publishes details of an undercover investigation … that shines a light on the secret world of vivisection laboratories.”
...
Since you will not find this information in the mainstream print media let me tell you what the Home Office found.
The infiltrations investigated by the Home Office took place at Imperial College London and the pharmaceutical company Merke, Sharpe and Dohme. Out of 180 allegations made by BUAV about Imperial, the Home office upheld just five and declared the other 175 “unsubstantiated”.
The five ‘non-compliance’ issues it found were classed as “minor” – one in category A and four in category B (with category D being at the most severe end of the suffering scale). Category B means that while there may have been “some animal welfare implications“, it “[did] not involve significant, avoidable or unnecessary pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm”, and there was “no evidence of intent to subvert the controls of ASPA [the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986]”.
While the Home Office repeated points it had made previously, which had been conceded by Imperial, about the poor culture of care and failings in management, the report concluded that “overall the … allegations of cruelty at the establishment have not been substantiated.” It was a far cry from the “abuse” reported by the Sunday Times, and as one commentator said, the BUAV allegations carried by the media “were 97% wrong and 3% right”.
In the case of Merke, Sharpe and Dohme, the Home Office upheld none of the BUAV claims. None. “Our findings confirm that the site is well managed with staff at all levels committed to the provision of appropriate standards of welfare and care, within the constraints of the scientific requirements of the research.” Again a very long way from the media headlines of “horrific distress” and animals that “can be heard screaming in terror as they are restrained by researchers”.
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This kind of one-sided reporting may have been more understandable when scientists stayed quiet on the issue, but this is no longer the case. Earlier this year, 81 organisations signed a Concordat on Openness in Animal Research, committing them to embrace media and public interest in their use of animals in research, and open up their facilities to more journalists. So when animal rights activists in Leicester recently told local newspapers that a new facility in the university would be used to inflict suffering on monkeys and dogs, the university threw its doors open to journalists who after unfettered access reported that this particular facility housed only rodents.
I’ve been introduced to a new Android game. Summoner’s War. It’s a free-to-play game, with optional IAP. Freemium, I guess.
You are a summoner and you take monsters into battle, following a storyline, with rare monsters available if you hunt for them. It’s a generally good time-waster.
Yes, you can pay money for speeding up the levelling, but you don’t have to, and there’s little push for it. You can have many monsters on your team, and include some from your friends.
There is also an Arena (this is the core of the game) where you can battle other players in PvP - but the players are not “live”. The players setup a defending team and when you battle them, that is the team that you face.
I’ve also just discovered the dungeons feature, where you can search for parts to Awaken monsters, where you upgrade your monster, causing it to change appearance and name, and gain better stats and a new skill. Another feature is Evolving monsters, where you increase your monster’s number of stars, resetting them to level 1 and return them to base stats, but their base stats are more powerful that the previous star level. I haven’t evolved any of my characters yet, although I do now have one eligible for it (my Vagabond, at L15) - not in any of these pictures. Evolution requires several monsters of the same star level to be sacrified. So, for example, my Vagabond is 2 stars, so I need 2x 2 star monsters. A three star monster need 3x 3 star monsters instead.
Whilst I’m no vigilante, I do strongly believe bad drivers should not be on the road. There was a website mentioned on the article and on the report Police Witness. It sells, and offers dashcams for sale. Some appear to be pretty good , albeit pricey - maybe even better than mine (which is a DOD LS300W)
Which reminds me, I must report a littering Merc and a crazy female BMW driver.
Then your version of bash is vulnerable to shellshock. Most distributions have already pushed out a new version of bash. My Ubuntu machines updated yesterday.
If you use Cygwin, then you need to check there to. Cygwin bash 4.1.10 is definitely vulnerable, but 4.1.11 is not.
If your version of bash is not vulnerable the output will be:
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x'
hello
This person got pissed with Sears. And then got Sear-ed in return (although, to be fair, it’s not clear whether the person who replied was a Sears employee, or just some passer-by who got pissed off with the post)
I completed C25K Week 9 Day 1 (4.83 km), in 25:50, pace 05:21 min/km, with @RunDouble http://rndb.co/h5qt
A successful non-stop run today. Felt really good during the run, even after a busy day at the office. No records broken today, but being able to clock 4.8km without stopping is an achievement.
This wouldn't work on me. But leave me in a room with a flask of sake, a laptop full of anime, and a box of Pocky, and, well.... you won't like what you see, let's put it that way...
