[tahoe-dev] Potential use for personal backup

[Saint Germain]

On Tue, 22 May 2012 13:36:24 -0700, Peter Secor <secorp at secorp.net>
wrote :
> > On Tue, 22 May 2012 13:01:58 -0600, "Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn"
> > <zooko at zooko.com> wrote :
> <PS> Thanks for the kind words, zooko is particularly good at
> responding well to questions both asked and unasked.
> 

Hello and thanks for your answer.

> >
> > Indeed what I had in mind was not possible with tahoe. It was mainly
> > because I couldn't imagine such a radical different approach.
> >
> > So as I understand it makes no real sense to have a node on my home
> > computer and it makes no real sense either to have a single node on
> > my remote server. So I have indeed to participate in some kind of
> > VolunteerGrid2 (I don't know anyone else as curious as me).
> > It's quite a psychological step to "give" your backups to people you
> > don't know, even if it is encrypted. But I _do_ understand all the
> > advantages.
> >
> <PS> Here is one idea for a solution in your scenario. The setup
> would be that you have let's say a laptop that you carry around with
> you and a home server. You can set up a local node on your laptop
> that is a non-storage node (one line in the config file - under the
> [storage] section set "enabled=true"). Then, you can set up a storage
> node on your home computer server and just make shares.needed=1,
> shares.happy=1, and shares.total=1, meaning no expansion, just
> straight 1-to-1 mapping for the encrypted file to shares on the
> server. Run the introducer on that server as well, and then every
> time your laptop is awake and you run a "tahoe cp" or "tahoe backup",
> it will use the local non-storage node on the laptop to encrypt the
> file and then transfer it over to your home server.
> 
> For bonus points, if you configure a helper on your home server
> (again, a one line config file change - under the [helper] section set
> "enabled=true") and you have enough disk space, it will actually
> handle partial uploads and restart if your connection dies. This is
> quite useful when transferring large files. However, none of this
> handles the big file with a small change (VM) scenario very well, for
> that you'd need some other method.
> 

Hum yes but in that case I don't see the advantage of tahoe over other
backup solutions like bup/obnam/backshift/BURP (except maybe
encryption).
For backups, the real advantage of tahoe is the multi-node architecture
I think (many backups software also offer encryption).

> > I suppose that it is possible that I contribute one node to
> > VolunteerGrid2 which can be used by my whole family and friends,
> > each having its private encrypted store ?
> >
> This could be possible, just contact the volunteer grid group with a
> description of what you want to do and that will provoke a discussion
> about it and what the general rules of engagement and use are.
> 
> >
> > The only problem I see, is that I will be limited by the storage
> > capacity. The remote server I intend to rent has 2 TB and I was
> > already thinking that it was too small for my "group" (5-10
> > people). I understant that it is better on VolunteerGrid2 if I
> > contribute between 500 GB and 1 TB ?
> >
> <PS>Again, this is probably a good discussion to have with the
> volunteer grid group, perhaps they will encourage people to start
> contributing more and you could be a push in that direction.
> 

Ok. I will do that if I decide to go with tahoe-LAFS !

Thanks again