Tarsnap Mastery: Online Backups for the Truly Paranoid (IT Mastery)

First, my disclaimer: I am a disgruntled system administrator who's been working with unix systems for decades now. I own almost every other book that Michael W. Lucas has authored. I had never heard of tarsnap before seeing this book pop-up on his author page. Now, a few weeks later - I have a great portion of my personal machines backing up with tarsnap.This book is a very quick read - much of it will be reiteration if you've already read tarsnap's webpage and help/manpages. However, as he does with many other topics, Michael W. Lucas has brought a realm of "real" to tarsnap. His examples of realistic-use and sarcastic-humour will earn a nod of "I've been there too" approval. If you're looking for a simple, secure way to backup Linux/BSD/Unixy machines - consider tarsnap and this book.

As, usual, Michael Lucas has written a detailed and easy to understand manual. As for Tarsnap, its cost and security conscious design, make it foolish to use any other cloud service for back up. I am currently having fun turning on business oriented friends to a service that pencils out at a fraction of the cost of other options. With this book, anyone can get in on this great deal in less than a days time.

If use any *NIX type system and need off-site backups, then you need Tarsnap, and if you want to use Tarsnap efficiently you need “Tarsnap Mastery.”While using the book to set up and start using Tarsnap, I only had to look at the manpage once and that was because I misread an instruction in the book. “Tarsnap Mastery” explains everything clearly and in detail.

Excellent