How to mount a partition with GUI

[Frank616]

Any of these machines on 24/7? Would be a lot easier IMO to have a central location.

The desktop and home entertainement machines are always on. However, I then lose my redundant backup. I also need Internet all the time if I am to access anything, assuming that you are suggesting setting up a home server with VPN (personal cloud) as the repository for all my data. I kind of like the distributed approach. It also allows me offsite backup without paying monthly fees to keep all my data in some sort of commercial (and inherently insecure) 'cloud'.

But that's just me.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Multiple backups only add additional security if they are sufficiently separate. In another view; using two computers to store data in the same location is only very slightly more secure than having two drives in the same computer. The difference is in a single computer model, it's somewhat more difficult to restore. If all your backups are in your house and your house burns down, you have no backups at all. Therefore, maintaining what amounts to five backups is no better than just a single backup - but it's a lot more work. The likelihood that a single event will destroy all your data at once is not reduced if all your data is in the same physical location. Personally, I would think data storage on the desktop and a single backup on the entertainment machine at would be as secure as what you've got now with less work. The backup from the desktop could be done automatically and your other computers could mount the data folder on the desktop when you log in - also automatically.

Obviously, this is just a discussion for intellectual purposes. I am not criticizing your current design nor would I expect you to change anything on my say-so.

While I agree that cloud options are not as secure as keeping all your data in house, the thing to be considered is safety vs. security. My family photos need to be backed up for safety, but not security. My tax records and similar data needs security as well as safety. My DVD collection needs very little of either safety or security as I can always re-rip them.

In my opinion, the optimal solution is a variety of storage/backup options that cover the needs of the data without unnecessary workload to maintain.

In my world, my music is backed up automatically to the cloud via Google music (free) and DVD collection is not backed up at all. My personal home folders have an onsite backup from my desktop to my server and also on my desktop on a separate drive. My wife's and son's laptops automatically backup to the server. My family photos and videos reside on the server, on a home DVR, and the cloud but are backed up manually whenever I add to the collection. My server configuration is backed up to my desktop. The one thing I would like to add is a personally secure but off-site backup, like moving my server to a separate location in another state! Easier said than done. My future plans are to use a central server to host the OS for the home computers to boot to as well as holding backups.

A final note: on my desktop and server I use btrfs which has snapshot capability. It's very a useful tool to avoid unnecessary backup storage.

[SteveRiley]

On my T520, /dev/sda is an internal 256 GB SSD with four partitions: EFI system, Kubuntu, Arch, and swap. /dev/sdb is a 1 TB 2.5" HDD in the UltraBay with a single partition.

/etc/fstab contains the minimal set of mounts required for boot:

steve@t520:~$ [B]cat /etc/fstab[/B]
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>               <dump>  <pass>
/dev/sda1       /boot/efi       vfat    defaults                0       1
/dev/sda2       /               ext4    noatime,data=writeback  0       1
/dev/sda4       none            swap    sw                      0       0
#
tmpfs           /tmp            tmpfs   noatime,mode=1777       0       0

Thus we have:

steve@t520:~$ [B]lsblk[/B]
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 238.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0   120G  0 part /
├─sda3   8:3    0   109G  0 part 
└─sda4   8:4    0     9G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 931.5G  0 part

And:

steve@t520:~$ [B]cat /proc/mounts[/B]
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
udev /dev devtmpfs rw,relatime,size=4054308k,nr_inodes=1013577,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0
tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=812868k,mode=755 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
none /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw,relatime,size=4k,mode=755 0 0
none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,noatime 0 0
none /run/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
none /run/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
none /run/user tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=102400k,mode=755 0 0
none /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed 0 0
systemd /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,name=systemd 0 0

Dolphin's "Places" pane shows the mounted and unmounted file systems (named using the e2label command):



Clicking on Data mounts the filesystem, which we can verify:

steve@t520:~$ [B]lsblk[/B]
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 238.5G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   512M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0   120G  0 part /
├─sda3   8:3    0   109G  0 part 
└─sda4   8:4    0     9G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 931.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 931.5G  0 part [B][COLOR="#B22222"]/media/Data[/COLOR][/B]

And:

steve@t520:~$ [B]cat /proc/mounts[/B]
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
udev /dev devtmpfs rw,relatime,size=4054308k,nr_inodes=1013577,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0
tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=812868k,mode=755 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
none /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw,relatime,size=4k,mode=755 0 0
none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,noatime 0 0
none /run/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
none /run/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime 0 0
none /run/user tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=102400k,mode=755 0 0
none /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed 0 0
systemd /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,name=systemd 0 0
[B][COLOR="#B22222"]/dev/sdb1 /media/Data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,data=ordered 0 0[/COLOR][/B]

The system log also records an event from the udisks daemon:

Nov 21 21:06:27 t520 kernel: [42847.981748] EXT4-fs (sdb1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
Nov 21 21:06:27 t520 udisksd[2607]: Mounted /dev/sdb1 at /media/Data on behalf of uid 1000

As Ohsun wrote, this approach results in a mount that follows the defaults for the given filesystem. If I wanted to change those, I'd need to create an entry in /etc/fstab.

[SteveRiley]

It also allows me offsite backup without paying monthly fees to keep all my data in some sort of commercial (and inherently insecure) 'cloud'.

Which part of your method described in post #29 is offsite? Good backup strategies include wide geographic diversity, which you generally can't get inside a single house

And I will have to quibble with your "inherently insecure cloud" remark. Good cloud architectures are highly resilient and can be very secure. Files that I simply cannot lose are backed up into an Amazon S3 bucket. The service itself maintains multiple copies of each file, in separate physical locations. I encrypt each file locally before upload, and I store copies of all keys with a different cloud provider. Monthly cost for 500 GB is about $38.00.

I can survive either the complete destruction of my house or total annihilation of the AWS data center in Boardman, Oregon. But not both, heh. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm really not getting much geographic diversity even still:



250 miles seems insufficient. I should probably move everything over to Ashburn, Virginia:



Yeah, 2700 miles feels much better. Besides, what possible event might inflict damage on both coasts simultaneously?

[Frank616]

oshunluvr:

The one thing I would like to add is a personally secure but off-site backup, like moving my server to a separate location in another state!

I have a bare drive in an external caddy that I sync with the same script every so often. I resides at my brother-in-law's house about an hour north of town. I take my laptop and the caddy with me when I visit there, and update that bare drive. My picture collection is irreplaceable.

On the other side, I agree that 5 backups adds little security. But when we take two of the laptops with us when traveling, my wife and I both have a full set of the data. I find that convenient enough to warrant running a script every so often. rsync does a delta update -- only updating the portions of a file that have changed. It is very fast.

I can see where your system is very well thought out, and easy to use.

Frank.

[Frank616]

Steve:

Good cloud architectures are highly resilient and can be very secure.

With the accent on 'can'. There have been some high profile data breaches at companies that should have known better.

In your case, encrypting the data before it goes in the cloud avoids that issue. I hadn't thought of that.

As to both coasts getting hit, well, there is nuclear war, asteroid collision, alien invasion. You just never know.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Steve:



With the accent on 'can'. There have been some high profile data breaches at companies that should have known better.

In your case, encrypting the data before it goes in the cloud avoids that issue. I hadn't thought of that.

As to both coasts getting hit, well, there is nuclear war, asteroid collision, alien invasion. You just never know.

Frank.

Returning to my earlier comments: photos are exactly the type of irreplaceable data the clouds services are best for. It's not like anyone could steal your bank accounts solely with a photo of you and I doubt Julian Assange is out to get you. Besides several free services out there, Steve often recommends Amazon Glacier as very cost effective for this sort of data. It's .01 per GB per month for storage and no upload costs. You can download 1 GB per month for free or pay .12 per GB for a TB of d/l. So 100 GB of photos costs you $12 a year to protect. Cheap insurance. Personally, I have a free 50GB Box account that covers my needs in this area.

[oshunluvr]

@Steve: BTW, I'm moving to North Carolina next summer. Wanna swap servers?

[SteveRiley]

With the accent on 'can'. There have been some high profile data breaches at companies that should have known better.

Yep; the vast majority of which have nothing at all to do with cloud computing.

Look, it's easy for people to say "cloud computing, oh no! That can't be secure, it's not my hardware!" It's also easy for those same people to be utterly incorrect.

As to both coasts getting hit, well, there is nuclear war, asteroid collision, alien invasion. You just never know.

When Were that to happen, I probably wouldn't care much about my data, haha.

[SteveRiley]

Steve often recommends Amazon Glacier as very cost effective for this sort of data. It's .01 per GB per month for storage and no upload costs.

Yes, for pure backups, Glacier is more cost effective than S3. The $38.00/month I mentioned above is for 500 GB in a reduced-redundancy bucket (two copies of every object rather than three). In Glacier, it's only $5.00/month, assuming you don't need to retrieve anything regularly. Glacier actually uses S3 but is priced for a different consumption model: shove-and-forget.

[SteveRiley]

@Steve: BTW, I'm moving to North Carolina next summer. Wanna swap servers?

Not with you or any other man!

[oshunluvr]

Not with you or any other man!

Soooo many inappropriate retorts, so little time

[vinnywright]

@Steve: BTW, I'm moving to North Carolina next summer. Wanna swap servers?

NC. ..... what part ? I am in lexington !

it's nice hear but we do have real winters and with snow some times


VINNY

[oshunluvr]

New Bern area. Not much show but we'll get hurricanes!

[vinnywright]

New Bern area. Not much show but we'll get hurricanes!

LOL yes you will ,,,,, nice area however .

I replasterd the ciling in the federal courthouse several years ago , a large barrel celling ,,,,,,my right shoulder hurts just thinking about it



their is a lot of cool old architecture in that town

VINNY