Today is World Backup Day.
I kid you not – it is a real thing that was noted when I booted my Win 10 box this morning. The calendar program on that machine includes “Geek Holidays”. The date was chosen to forestall problems caused by April Fool’s Day.
I’m about to get started. I was delayed because my blog backup plug-in that updated yesterday, updated again today and the damn thing is larger than WordPress. 😡
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44 comments
You probably already know this… 😉
Does your hoster provide Softaculous? As well as managing installed software (like WordPress) and the s/w updates, it also automates backups & schedules. Most shared hosting providers use it for that reason.
I have mine set to do daily incremental & weekly full backups. It also has the facility to do a DB backup as well as site backup, so you can easily access that data if you need it. It also sends me a daily email summary of everything. 🙂
It’s a bit redundant for me, though history has taught me redundancy in backups is ALWAYS a great idea! 😉 My hoster provides a full daily backup via R1Soft Backup which is stored offsite & then a copy is d/l automatically by my CentOS server to my NAS. Can never have too many backups! 😀
I’ve used MediaFire as one of my offline storage provider for years now. I have 1 TB storage. They have been very good. Never had any down time, it’s inexpensive ($50/yr) and the generous monthly bandwidth rolls over. They just doubled it for being a long term customer, just over 2.5 PB of bandwidth available with 2.5 TB/mth added! The things I could do with that! 😆 Nice to see one company looks after their *early adopters*! 😉 😀
I originally got the account for the proposed biz. Primarily for document/image storage/sharing/hosting. Mainly been using it for archival & backup purposes & some file storage/sharing for friends.
“The best made plans…” *shrug*
My backup is done to my NAS, which is a snapshotting ZFS setup that backs up to an external USB drive that’s another ZFS volume. I scored a couple of 8 terabyte drives for cheap and replaced the previous 2 terabyte and 3 terabyte RAID pairs that I was using. I also scored a 10 gigabit switch cheap off of eBay, and a couple of 10 gigabit hard cables and Ethernet cards too, so now I’m 10 gigabit to my NAS, bay-bee ;). Of course, SAS2/SATA3 only goes 6gbit/sec so it’s not as if I can use all of that bandwidth, other than for cached stuff…
BTW, this is all scrap / eBay surplus stuff. The reason I scored a 10 gig switch for cheap, for example, is that Amazon just dumped ten of thousands of them onto the used market because they’re upgrading the backbones in all their data centers to 40 gigabit speed…
I can back up everything import on a a 1TB USB, so that’s what I do weekly. I have burned DVDs of the archive stuff (anything earlier than Win XP) and recovery disks.
My host charges me almost nothing because the system is a la carte, and I don’t use too many menu choices.
The whole purpose of the backup plug-in was to zip the backup to make it quicker to download to my machine and become part of my local backup system. It leaves files in a directory and I move them down to my machine. I don’t want them floating around the ‘Net. Oh, they updated again today. 😡
You get good stuff on the Left Coast, Badtux. By the time anything technical is put on the used market here, it is of historical interest, not useful.
Update: Those clowns just issued another update, the second today.
Fleabay, Bryan. Even the stuff I buy locally, I end up getting thru Fleabay because they don’t have an actual storefront, though I can do will-call from their warehouse after I purchase it via Fleabay. I’ve basically equipped an entire startup with perfectly useful Fleabay gear. And Moore’s Law seems to have stopped — the 2010-vintage 12-bay NAS server sitting beside me now seems to work just fine, I upgraded it with a SAS2 card and a SAS2 backplane (both purchased as surplus from Fleabay) and now with a 10 gigabit card, but it has plenty of horsepower to do NAS work, even with all the overhead of ZFS (which does lots of checksum calculations and etc. that regular filesystems don’t do).
I generally only shop eBay for specific things that I can’t find on regular retail sites. I got burned on some deals, so I’m really cautious about going there.
Fleabay has improved their guarantees for buyers in a way that sucks for sellers but if it’s a seller with lots of reviews that’s been around for a while, generally they aren’t going to play games. Otherwise Fleabay would have already kicked them to the curb.
Yes. I always check the sellers reputation, history & reviews. I bought something from eBay about 9 years ago & got burned. Lesson learned. Haven’t had any problems since. The DELL Tablet I bout last year is a good example. All smooth & a great deal. Also a bunch of other things over the past few years. I’ve been contacted by some of the sellers asking if I was happy with the product & service & any questions. better support than most stores! LOL I bought my linux server (ex 6 mth old DELL Dedicated Hosting Server sold due to upgrades. I was going to buy 2 @ the bargain price offered, I wish I had sometimes) and some networking gear with no problems. Even from USA now that eBay has good international shipping deals. I recently got
“The “M*A*S*H Martinis and Medicine Collection” for US$54 (normally $175-$195) because 2 of the 36 DVD’s had a manufacturing flaw (1 played in French & 1 in Spanish by default. Easily fixed by using the language selection menu.) I figured that to save $130-$150, I could live with that! 😆
eBay has come a long way. But it definitely pays to be wary & careful!
I have to say I’ve been pleasantly surprised with WebHostFace. Best shared-hosting I’ve ever tried! Most really suck @ support & product features (very basic usually & limited in how you can expand on the basics). I got the bargain deal offered to StackSocial Premium members last Nov. for US$99 for 5 years on the Face Ultima plan (usually $9.95/mth). It really has everything! 30 GB SSD, Static IP & Apache Handlers & MODs (rare on shared hosting), Cloudflare, Private SSL Cirt, SSH, Softaculous/RVsitebuilder/Siteapps & Sitelock, everything from PERL to Ruby (& multiple versions supported)… it’s a very long list! I’ve been having some fun with it over the past few months when I’ve been able. 🙂 I had one support query that was resolved next day with no hassles! Their plans start @ $3.45/mth (w/ 50% off the 1st year if you pay for a year upfront), with fewer features (most of which can be added for a 1 time or monthly/annual fee or there are upgrade options).
I still have my IWstack dedicated cloud service (via Prometeus), but that’s for other purposes. 🙂
Well, my new NBN modem/router arrived today. I have to use it because the provider use their own firmware for it & it has 2 VoIP ports (because I loose landline phone with NBN), which my ASUS router doesn’t. Bit annoyed by that, but I can bridge them! I’ll have an extra firewall & security layer at least. 😉 It’s Aussie made (in China of course!) by a company I despise with a passion for good reasons! NetComm Wireless NF10WV. At least I didn’t have to pay for it! Was included in the 2yr deal (I never usually take 2yr plans, but they offered a good discount & the free router, plus I can cancel for a $149 fee @ any time. basically covers the usual setup & router cost, so fair enough. Most others force you to pay out the remainder of the contract.) I got an SMS that NBN would be enabled on 6/April/17 between 7AM & 4 PM! Seriously, if that’s the best they can plan, no wonder the NBN is so screwed! I’ve decided to keep my current ADSL2 for a month (I can even use both) just in case!!
Here for a laugh, & one of the many reasons I despise this company (Netcomm)!
Netcomm NF10WV Customer review: Modem colour should be Lemon
Well, good thing I only want the NBN VDSL modem! Though I did want VoIP as an option. Guess I’ll have to see if the issues have been fixed. Knowing them, I won’t be holding my breath!
Hmmm. Well, I think I figured out why my ISP (and many others on forums I researched) want to use Netcomm’s crappy router/modem.
The ASUS DSL-AC68U uses a mediatek MT7510 VDSL2 chipset.
The Alcatel-Lucent FTTN DSLAM (ISAM 7330) uses a Broadcom chipset in the line cards.
The Netcomm NF10WV uses the Broadcom BCM63168 VDSL2 chipset and is currently the only one certified by the NBN!
All the forums I’ve read basically say use the Netcomm as a modem & bridge it to the ASUS if you want WAN/LAN.
Nothing is ever simple! These turkeys have only had 8 years to get NBN sorted & it’s still a pig’s breakfast! BT in the UK have totally abandoned FTTN as they just couldn’t make it work reliably. Which we all knew & warned the Gov & NBN when they decided a couple years ago to switch from FTTP/FTTC (Fiber To The Property/Curb) to FTTN (Node w/ up to 1km old copper phone lines to the premises)!
Just found this little gotcha in the PDF manual I d/l for the Netcomm POS!
“The modem configuration page can be accessed by three accounts – admin, support and user.”
LMAO Oh well… I guess I’ll need to change 3 username/passwords! What moron thought it was a good idea to have all 3 accounts full access to the configuration of the modem?! And no prizes for guess what the default password’s are! 😉 At least they use a decent 10 character random pwd for the SSID! They include a card in the box with it. They also don’t use the standard 192.168.0.1 or .1.1 or .10 IP to access the router.
The modem/router guys make security a hell of a lot harder than it needs to be. I assume it’s to make things easy for newbies. but damn, locking in admin as the user name sort of eliminates it as a security feature. Chipset roulette is another thrilling part if the game – will your OS work with the chip set in the equipment you just bought. I have a Motorola modem because it is one of the few on the approved list of the cable company that you can buy locally, an important requirement if there is need to replace a failed modem quickly.
I have a separate wireless router so I don’t have to screw with everything if I change ISPs, which is not likely.
If I need something specific, like the disk rails for my Dell XP box, eBay was the only place I could find them. Specialized things like that are pretty much limited to eBay.
Motorola is no longer in the cable modem business, they sold it to Google, and then Google sold it to Arris. When I upgraded my cable modem I still bought a dedicated Arris cable modem without router and WiFi, though, because for router and WiFi I want my own dedicated box I can flash myself. So I got an ASUS box I could flash with a custom version of the firmware, which also gives me OpenVPN and an ASUS DNS name I can CNAME from my own domain.
Lately I’m looking at moving on from there with a dedicated pfSense appliance and wireless access points that are just access points. There’s things I want to do at my gateway router that are difficult to do with WRT, but easy to do with pfSense, and I don’t want to be disrupting my WiFi while doing that…
My modem has Motorola and Arris on it and the stupid name “Surfboard”. I would assume they were just using up available parts, as Arris was probably making them for Motorola. I’m on my third router, as speeds increase and I get new equipment that can actually use it.
That appliance really looks and sounds good. The reviews are certainly good.
The only downside I’ve heard with that appliance is that it won’t handle IDS/antivirus at more than 40mb/sec because of the limitations of the Celeron processor inside it. Given that my cable connection doesn’t even do 20mb/sec most days…
I just went ahead and ordered that appliance. Given the security threats coming down the road, it seems reasonable.
The only negative comment about the access point was that the Java app wouldn’t work on his Windows 10 machine. I felt like screaming that half of Microsoft’s own stuff doesn’t work on Windows 10.
I’m going to continue using my ASUS access point for home. I’m thinking about the Ubiquity access points for the office though. Apparently you need to have a dedicated Windows management server (dedicated in that the access points are centrally managed from that single server and cannot be managed from anywhere else) in order to centrally manage multiple of them. I’m about to deploy Windows 2012R2 to handle our legacy data and authentication, I’ll probably plop the management console onto that server.
The pfSense does look good. 🙂 I was chatting with a ZyXEL rep last year about a dedicated VPN/router/firewall and they made me a good offer on the ZyWALL 110 VPN Firewall. Which given all my network infrastructure is ZyXEL & I’ve had no problems in the years I’ve been using them, It makes sense for me to stick with them. Difficult to finger point when all the gear comes from the one company! 😉 😆 Been there! Also, my LAN is essentially 4 Gbps, so 4 ports is a requirement, witch both have. 🙂
But now that all my biz stuff is on hold & my $ is needed elsewhere, it’s pretty academic now. I may even have to sell off some of the gear I have. *shrug* I’ll see how I go.
If you do get it badtux, I’d be interested in how it goes. And good luck m8! 😀
Gee, Badtux, you get to have all the fun – wrenching Jeeps and playing with new hardware 😉
There is a definite advantage to not having to argue with mulple vendors about whose equipment screwed things up. I’m dealing with the problem of AMD telling me that they can’t update a driver because I have an unsupported graphics card … odd since I have an AMD APU [combined CPU & GPU]. It’s another Win 10 problem, so I’m not going to sweat it.
I’m with Kryten, let us know how the appliance works out.
Good news: NBN is working (on the crappy Netcomm router/modem)
Stupid news: They changed the default admin password to a decent one, butt didn’t send me the changed pwd! Were going to email butt I requested an SMS!
I can’t change the passwords or any security settings! The “Management – Access Controls” menu seems to have been disabled! I’ve lodged a “WTF” request! Also asked how I can bridge it as a modem ONLY to my ASUS! Judging by the manual, a few menu’s seem to have gone AWOL!
This cheap crappy router only has 100mbps Ethernet ports! So my local LAN is now crawling!
Other than that… I’m impressed! Just d/l a 1GB file as a test. Completed in about 14 min’s. But I would like to do some tweaking & testing from the router, if the menu’s to do so were available! Serriously… WTF??!
I’m waiting for the NBN provider to get back to me with the details I need to either use my ASUS standalone, or the ASUS bridged to the Netcomm as a modem & VoIP only.
I must say, I am surprised & somewhat bemused by the performance reported by the router! Pretty much all forum discussion’s I’ve looked at have complained they getting far less performance than their selected NBN mode supports. I seem to have the opposite!
I opted for the NBN Tier 2 plan (25/5 Mbps), but the router reports it’s connected @ 28/6.4 Mbps.
After some testing, other figures look OK also:
SNR Margin (0.1 dB): 195/180
Attenuation (0.1 dB): 207
Output Power (0.1 dBm): 124/9
Attainable Rate (Kbps): 58236/26044
So I could go to a Tier 4 plan (50/20 Mbps) without a problem. tier 5 (100/40 Mbps) would be a waste (unless upload speed becomes important).
No point though now given the performance with the 1 GB d/l. And it saves me $10/mth. 🙂
Still, nice to know the option is there if I need it.
Little update FYI: 😉
According to an NBN FTTN chart I found posted last year, and if the above stat’s are correct, I must be around 450-550 meters from the node cabinet (which is old phone-line copper to me). The original plan for FTTN was spacing the nodes 500 meters, but that was changed by the cheap LNP bastards to 1.1 km. Anyone at the extreme distance is screwed basically given this chart represents the best possible copper speeds (ie. new cables and good installation all the way).
http://s32.postimg.org/6ly1x701h/VDSL2_Rate_vs_distance.png
You can actually do real things again, so that’s a plus. I hear you on the modem. I bought my own because I didn’t want to pay a lease fee, and the device they were going to send me was on the bottom of everyone’s list. I forget the name, but it wasn’t important because it was someone else’s crummy box with a different name plate. A lot of the equipment you get from cable companies in the US is private brand crap built by prisoners and children in Asia.
People have obviously been able to convert the device to something useful, but that Ethernet speed makes it sound like this is old equipment purchased off of eBay. 1Gb is the standard for everything I looked at lately. OTOH, they may need old equipment to work with the NBN standards.
Don’t you hate it when politicians do tech?
That didn’t last long. Lost internet last night suddenly. Called support this morning & after tests etc. decided I have a faulty line suddenly. Have to wait for a tech to call & make an appointment to come out. Maybe late next wk. I can’t win. Using mobile now. Let u know when I know.
Cleaning the connections was all it took for them to clear up my last problem. I live in a salt air environment, so it is to be expected. We both live in environments where telecoms don’t do any preventive maintenance. Everything is gambling in business these days. 🙁
Hang in there. You at least know that a connection is a definite possibility and not just a hope.
Last time I had a major problem with my cable, it turned out that a roof rat had gnawed through the wiring outside my house. Err. Yeah.
They don’t gnaw the wiring, but they do knock out service by electrocuting themselves on the top of transformers – true ‘dead’ shorts…
The builders have been repairing the units, guttering was rusted & full of holes, roof & some woodwork. Maybe damaged old wiring or MDF. Checked phone socket &wiring here. OK. *shrug*
Well, the pfSense appliance arrived today. I’ve set it up to do Squid / Squidguard and Snort. One problem was that the content decoding error rule was triggering on everything and blocking random sites. Including this one! So I’m fiddling with the rule sets to see if there’s a way to block just that one rule from running… not that it’s hard to whitelist sites with the pfSense GUI.
Performance-wise, Snort and Squid are using about 25% of the CPU at 10 megabytes per second pulling in some big binary files (downloading Centos), so I would presume that the appliance would max out at around 40 megabytes per second. Then I dialed back the Snort rules to not block so many things (it blocked my own mail server because I have a buggy IMAP4 server that sent a malformed reply!), and that went down to almost zero, so it would handle 100 megabytes per second right now if I had that fast a connection to the Internet.
Now to set up Windows Server 2012R2 Essentials and figure out how to make it authenticate against a Windows domain…
The most depressing thing in the world is sitting here watching Snort spit out a constant stream of attacks being done against my poor little cable router…. sigh.
Squirrels or roofers – not much difference when it comes to collateral damage 😈
I stopped looking at my firewall log – too annoying. It’s not that I’m extremely tight on access, the morons are using really obnoxious bots. If I leave my WordPress log-in available for longer than it takes for me to sign in, the bots start guessing.
It sounds like the appliance is doing its job, which always gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling. I’m waiting for some parts to fix a what I think is wrong with a piece of equipment. I’ll be really pissed if my logic was fabulous except for not fixing the problem.
Good luck badtux.
Still no internet. Didn’t even get a call by tech yet. Called my ISP yesterday. They say they lodged a support issue w/ NBN Mon. Now it’s Easter hol’s, not expecting anything for awhile.
Getting your money was very important, actually providing service … not so much.
It would be nice to live someplace where the ISPs weren’t all assholes.
I understand South Korea has some really fast Internet access, fastest average high speed access in the world (at half the price of access in the US), thanks to their government taking a hands-on approach to regulating Internet providers rather than relying on free market woo-woo. But then you have to live next door to lunatics and learn Korean. The upside is kimchi.
Sad that the only way to live someplace where the ISPs aren’t all assholes is to move to another country…
It is sort of strange the way the Free-Market Fairy seems to lead towards monopolies and increased prices, while regulation seems to lead towards competition and lower prices. A puzzlement ….
I’m back online. See how long it lasts! Tech. just left. There was a faulty DSLAM & the old phone line in these unit’s was partly corroded. Good thing the DSLAM was faulty, otherwise I would have to have paid $199 to get the line repaired! Even though I’m renting & the fault was nothing to do with me! What a con game.
I d/l a few GB & ran a speedtest. It’s pretty good. Ping=10ms, DN=24.48 UP=4.79 Mbps. Pretty close to max for the Tier 2 service. Seems the ISP realised the mistake of my getting 28/6.4 mbps before i lost service & reset it to 25/5. *shrug* Doubt I’ll notice any difference. 🙂
In some sad news… John Clarke (of Clarke & Dawe) died on Sun. :'(
John Clarke, satirist and comedian, dies aged 68
Bryan Dawe breaks his silence on the death of his friend John Clarke
Very sad. I watched his great satirical wit on several shows over 3 decades. And he’s sorely needed now! The LNP must be dancing with joy! 🙁
Such is life. *shrug*
In some good news for USA, it seems FOX ratings are dropping & Maddow’s is the best it’s ever been! LOL
Rachel Maddow’s Brilliant Reporting on Trump and Russia Has Upset the Snowflakes at Fox News
Well, I have a LOT of emails & other stuff to catch up on! Going to be a very busty week.
Oh, Romania has very good internet in terms of performance & price (in the top 3). Apparently, Transylvania is planning to be #1. They are madly building infrastructure. 🙂 I get news now & then because I registered interest in moving there. Given my primary hoster is in Romania & Italy, it makes sense. Plus, they seem a lot saner than AU/US/UK!
At this point it isn’t much of an accomplishment to be saner than the US.
I noted John Clarke’s passing. It is a real shame as the current era was grist for his mill. Over here Saturday Night Live is enjoying great success with Drumpf in the White House.
Poor Faux News, it must be tought when your audenience was formed by opposing the government and now they are the government … and they don’t know how to govern.
Hopefully you are back for a while.
If Clarke was American or Russian, given he was pretty fit & healthy, & he had a massive coronary… I’d be looking at Bulgarians with pointy umbrella’s! 😉
Maybe they should do a thorough autopsy. it’s that kind of World. And like the GOP, I’d put nothing past the LNP. Given C&D were the biggest thorns they had.
*shrug* I could make a fortune selling foil hat’s! & Umbrella proof armor. LOL
Make that Bulgarians or Belgians. 😉 Russians prefer nuclear tea! LOL Amerikans prefer snipers. 😀
I still miss Molly Ivins. She didn’t manage to keep Bush from being elected despite detailing exactly what kind of man he was in her book “Shrub”, but she would have had uproarious things to say about “Turnip”.
Kryten, teens in Romania are making good money pushing fake news, and conspiracy theories could get you a job in the White House or big bucks Brietbart Media.
Molly was a required read. You not only found out who was doing what to whom, you had a hell of a lot of fun on the trip.
I know. 😀 I saw a good Documentary that interviewed Romanian kid’s doing that some months ago. Very enterprising I thought! There was a need, and they filled it rapidly and made some very good money! Capitalists would have been in awe! LOL
And highlighted that you can indeed make money from the insanely stupid Amerikans! More than drug running! LMAO
True entrepreneurs who saw a market and met the demand. Having lived under a dictator they had the experience to generate professional-level propaganda. They saw how easy it was to fool the Americans and went for the gold. This was the type of story that made Horatio Alger wealthy in the 19th century…
All true! 😀
I’m trying to get through 2 weeks of emails! Gonna take ages. *shrug*
Just saw that Don Rickles died too. But at least he was 90. 😀 Not a bad run! From a WW2 Navy vet to a great comedian & actor.
He was in almost all my fave shows from the 50’s to 60’s! 😀 The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Munsters, Addams Family, The Mothers-in-Law, Gilligan’s Island, Get Smart, The Andy Griffith Show, I Dream of Jeannie… Oh, and The Twilight Zone! 😀
I think he got his start in a Night club in Florida if memory serves. 🙂
At least you can now deal with them and have a chance of catching up. If you had been down much longer you would have better off archiving them.
He did clubs, and then got noticed by Johnny Carson, which led to Las Vegas gigs, and hooking up with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. He had a long career – the original insult comedian.