Re: ontape encryption?

chud wrote: > > > Additionally ontape can backup/restore to/from STDIN/STDOUT. This is > > useful if you want to do something like. > > > > ontape | gzip | encrypt > /backup/bkup.dat > > Can anyone add to this? Could you possibly use GPG? Do any of you > encrypt your ontape backups, and if so how? Thanks. > Since it reads from stdin/stdout, you can pipe it to any pipe-compliant program you want. You can even send it as input to a Python/Perl script, to search for some records, although it would make more sense to use SQL and the database for that :-) You should encrypt your backups only if you are worried of the consequences that might occur if the content falls into the wrong hands. That probably means ALWAYS. Standard password guidelines apply (e.g. don't write it on the tape). Don't forget: you want those backup tapes (or disks) offsite, in case of disaster. And a little bit of advice: choose your compression scheme wisely. Differences in time and space can be significant with choice of compression algorithm and options. Using plain gzip with default options is probably not your best match. Maybe you need to squeeze the backup into as little space as possible to match the size of your tape/disk. Maybe you need the backup to be over as soon as possible. Maybe bz2 works better with your data. You should probably make a few tests first and choose the most appropriate method for your needs.