First Backup Over Ethernet, Then Subsequent Over Wifi?

[aadd728c-5582-442a-9ce1-9f22430e2cef]

I'm trying to use Retrospect 8.2 in a home backup setup. Under usual circumstances, all three Macs are connected by a wifi (802.11n) network. While this is fast enough for incremental backups, it won't work for the first backup of each machine which needs to backup tens or hundreds of gigabytes.

 

I've tried connecting each machine to the backup server directly with Ethernet, and from there I can add the machines as sources with the "name.local" address and do a backup. However, once I return the machines to the wireless network, the backup host can't find them again. If I re-add them, it will but then it tries to backup everything all over again (defeating the point).

 

One thing I plan to try is to connect both the backup server and the client machines to my router and see if that work. In this case they will be on the same subnet, as opposed to when I connect them directly with Ethernet and they have a link-local address. I'll report back here if this works (or doesn't) but I was wondering if anyone knew a sure-fire way to get this to work.

[Guest Steve Maser]

When you say "backup everything all over again" -- do you have matching turned off in your scripts?

 

Even if you've relocated the network information (and removed/readded the clients), if you've already backed up the *files* on the clients to a media set, if you have matching set on (which is on by default for any scripted backup), then it shouldn't be backing up the data a second time to the same media set (unless something changed about the data?)

Edited October 4, 2011 by Steve Maser

[f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308]

I can add the machines as sources with the "name.local" address

 

But can you add the machines via Multicast, without using a network name? That will allow the client machines to talk to Retrospect irrespective of their ip address.

[aadd728c-5582-442a-9ce1-9f22430e2cef]

But can you add the machines via Multicast, without using a network name? That will allow the client machines to talk to Retrospect irrespective of their ip address.

 

No, my machines never show up there. This is a home network using an Airport Extreme base station. As for the previous question, I do believe I have matching turned on but I will have to check and try again. This will probably take me a couple of days to do as I only get time to work on it late at night after my family is asleep.

[aadd728c-5582-442a-9ce1-9f22430e2cef]

When you say "backup everything all over again" -- do you have matching turned off in your scripts?

 

Even if you've relocated the network information (and removed/readded the clients), if you've already backed up the *files* on the clients to a media set, if you have matching set on (which is on by default for any scripted backup), then it shouldn't be backing up the data a second time to the same media set (unless something changed about the data?)

 

As it turns out you are correct. I was trying a test folder that was about ~300MB and when I backed up again it doubled to ~600. But looking at the log no files were backed up. It seems like every backup adds about 300MB of overhead regardless of how many files are backed up. This seems high, but I guess that is what it is.

 

So for the record, here's what I did: (1) connected the client machine the backup server with an ethernet cable; (2) turned off the wifi on the client (3) added the client as a source in Retrospect using the client.local name; (4) ran a full backup; (5) disconnected everything and removed the client from the source list (6) put the client in its usual place, reenabled wifi (6) re-added the client as a source using the client.local name (7) set up the backup the way I'd like it set up with a proactive backup.

 

Once that was done, the first backup ran in a reasonable amount of time and didn't add very many files as I would expect. Thanks for the help.