"backup" user on ubuntu install?

[tr333]

i tried creating a new user called "backup" only to find that it already exists with the default install. What is this user used for?

[craigp84]

Backing up stuff :-)

Actually, it's not used in ubuntu. But it can easily be.

I have in the past setup a sudo map like:

backup ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/tar cpvf /dev/st0 /etc /root ...

Once this is rolled out across your prod env, couple it with some ssh pubkey authentication goodness (remember you can limit what host(s) a key is valid from, and even what commands can be run- nice for the security paranoid :-) And then wire up a cron job as "backup" user to run the backups across a few hosts.

The benefits are mainly cleanliness - it keeps stuff organised instead of root's crontab becoming bloated.

-c

[tr333]

looks a bit too confusing for my backup purposes...

might just stick with rsync for the moment.