Filed under: How-tos, Tips and tricks, Internet Tools
Backup your Mac to DreamHost
Michael Lee at the Addison Road blog has put together a nice tutorial for doing an online backup to a DreamHost account. DreamHost is a well known shared hosting provider that offers a reasonably good deal on website hosting, with about 170GB of storage for about $8 a month. Michael is basically suggesting that if you have a site with DreamHost, but don't use anywhere near your allotment of storage and bandwidth, you can use some of that space for online backup instead of one of dedicated online backup services like JungleDisk with S3, Omnidrive or Joyent BingoDisk. Michael's solution involves using OS X's built-in command line tool rsync to do the heavy lifting (the actual backing up), scheduled using iCal alarms calling an AppleScript.In fact, I have been a DreamHost customer for quite some time, and I use my hosting account like this as well. Instead of using rsync like Michael, however, some time ago I set up an Automator workflow that calls the Transmit FTP client to upload backups to a WebDAV folder as suggested on the Strongspace blog. One advantage of doing it this way is that I can mount that WebDAV folder in the Finder to grab files off of it (or even access it through a web browser). However you do it, taking advantage of online storage space you might already be paying for is a good idea.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Lane said 11:01AM on 4-02-2007
What about using macFUSE with SSHFS to do this? Can anyone teach this n00b how to make that work?
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Rhys said 10:58AM on 4-02-2007
I've been doing this for a little while, with my iMac set to wake up at 3am, then at 3.03am cron calls a script to rsync my files and then sleep the computer again.
The real advantage of rsync is that it only uploads files that have changed, rather than /every/ file, every time, with Transmit.
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KiltBear said 7:13PM on 4-02-2007
Howdy.
I have also been using rsync to dreamhost as a backup solution for about 4 months now.
It would be a good thing to note that backing up via rsync does have some limitations, especially for files with Apple’s extended attributes. More specifically with my experience a good example would be a textClipping file. It will appear to back up the clippings file, but the text clipping will be empty.
The solution is to add the -E option to the rsync command. HOWEVER, this only works when going from Mac to Mac as the -E option is supported only on Mac computers (or computers that have the Apple modified rsync running on them.)
Dreamhost rsync does NOT support the -E option. What that means is that some of your files are really not adequately backed up. Most of them will be, though as most files don’t rely on the resource fork anymore.
You can google “rsync macosx” for lots of discussion on this and take a peek at: http://lists.apple.com/archives/macos-x-server/2006/Apr/msg00183.html
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Steven said 12:00PM on 4-02-2007
mozy.com has their mac client out in beta now. $5 per month for unlimited storage, automatic backups.
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systemsboy said 12:36PM on 4-02-2007
I want to second KiltBear's comment: It's really important to note that this will NOT preserve resource forks. Fine if you just need to back up some text files or preferences or what-not. Not good for backing up all your Mac data. There are still a lot of files that use resource forks (like Final Cut Pro files, for instance). Please don't use this tip if you need a proper and complete backup system.
-systemsboy
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Eli Hodapp said 12:51PM on 4-02-2007
With Dreamhost's history of lackluster security and server administration*, is it really a good idea to keep an unencrypted copy of all your personal files on a shared server with 100+ other people that have SSH access?
*Hey, I'm not complaining, I am a Dreamhost customer too, I just don't have high expectations for ~$10 a month.
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Brady J. Frey said 1:08PM on 4-02-2007
I'm with Eli - this is a very insecure system. I jumped from them to Media Temple (yes, I know overpriced, but has been great quality and support so far) not only because of their lackluster security but because of their flaky uptime. You get what you pay for, don't expect anything more.
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Alan K said 1:12PM on 4-02-2007
I guess you guys don't care that the Dreamhost employees can get a free copy of all your personal data.
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Mat Lu said 1:18PM on 4-02-2007
re: Security
I think this is a valid concern, and I don't upload any particularly sensitive information to my DreamHost account. On the other hand, you might say something similar about the other online backup systems. If you're really freaked out about that, then you should encrypt stuff before uploading it.
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Matt said 1:57PM on 4-02-2007
Can any one comment on this...
what about doing a local "Backup.app" backup and then syncing the files via your FTP client such as "Cyberduck.app"(Free). this could then be done to any web hosting company. The only downside i see here is that cyberduck has no "automater.app" integration but i am sure that someone who was good with apple script could cut a script for the whole process and then use ical to launch it when the user wants it done. This would solve 2 backup solutions. the local copy and the off site copy. Please comment on this i want to know what the community thinks of this solution. and if any one knows how you could applescript this kind of thing could you tell me how?
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ian said 5:21PM on 4-02-2007
If you're (quite righty IMO) worried about security when backing up to shared hosting, create an AES encrypted Sparse Image using Disk Utility big enough for your backup, save it to your DreamHost (or whoever) WebDav space, mount the image in Finder then backup to the image... bingo - only you can access the stuff on it. Job's a good'un!
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Peter said 5:41PM on 4-02-2007
Great way to use my DreamHost account...
Those who don't have an account yet, can get one cheap by using one of the promo codes from http://www.dreamhost-promo-code.com/
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Bud Manley said 7:16PM on 4-02-2007
Uncanny, I just put this in my blog a few days ago:
http://www.latestintech.com/2007/03/23/macfuse/
"Dreamhost.com would give you an even better value than Amazon’s S3 and JungleDisk. If you pay up-front a year of of hosting, 200Gigs of storage space and 2 terabytes of bandwidth Dreamhost will cost you $120."
This does look like a more complete tutorial, rather than just an idea.
You can also do this with a Windows computer, my tutorial can be found here:
http://www.latestintech.com/2007/03/20/sync-windows-directories-with-linux/
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James said 1:06AM on 4-03-2007
I've had slow performance using WebDav drives in general. Am I doing something wrong or it's slow...
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Bud Manley said 2:11AM on 4-03-2007
James, it would all depend your connection as well as your hosts'. You could always try secure copying a file if your host allows ssh access, time that and compare to WebDav speeds. Heck you could probably install FUSE and sshFS http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/downloads/list and compare speeds with WebDav that way as well.
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