Topic: General Backup

[Mike]

Hi Guys,
      How can I backup all data in my SME Server? Is that possible that when I change my hard drive from 8 GB to 20 GB I can restore my previous configuration such as users, mails and configuration to the newly installed SME Server in 20 GB. What sholud I do?
I'm running SME 5.1.2 with horde 2.1 and IMP 3.1, Hard drive works at IDE environment.

Thanks


Mike

[Ray Mitchell]

Mike
You will need to do a tape backup if you have a lot of data.
You could try a backup to desktop but Windows has a file size limit of 2Gb so if your data creates a backup file larger than 2Gb, it won't work.

You could try copying all your ibay data and user home folder data onto Windows workstations, and once copied delete the files off the server but leave the empty ibays there.
This will free up a lot of space and then you could do a backup to desktop, which needs to be less than the 2Gb limit again, but this will have all your user configurations, ibays, email, server setup  etc.

Then do a clean instal on your new hard drive and then restore from desktop, and then copy your data from the Windows backups back to the server ibays and home folders.

It's a bit of a juggle, but I have done it a few times and it works OK.

Much easier if you have a tape drive though.
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Erik Fleischer]

If your workstations are WinNT or Win2k, XP, you don't have the 2 gb size limit, actually

NTFS uses 64-bit cluster indexes. This capacity gives NTFS the ability to address volumes of up to 16 exabytes (16 billion GB); however, Windows 2000 limits the size of an NTFS volume to that addressable with 32-bit clusters, which is 128 TB (using 64-KB clusters). The following table shows the default cluster sizes for NTFS volumes.


In other words if you have a ntfs volume, you don't normally have a sizelimit.

[Charlie Brady]

Erik Fleischer wrote:
 
> If your workstations are WinNT or Win2k, XP, you don't have
> the 2 gb size limit, actually
...
> In other words if you have a ntfs volume, you don't normally
> have a sizelimit.

No, there is a 2GB file limit, but it's at the server end.

Charlie

[Tom Veitch]

Yeah I just used ghost and it worked

[mike]

Guys thanks for you all advise, I will try it all for sure...

God Bless


Mike

[Ray Mitchell]

Thanls for that confirmation Charlie,
Yes whether I do a desktop backup to Windows 95, 98 or 2000Pro, I still run into the 2Gb limit. Yes I can create 4Gb files directly on my Win200pro box but not from the sme server.
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Rob Wellesley]

Tom Veitch wrote:
>
> Yeah I just used ghost and it worked


Which version Tom?

rob

[Charlie Brady]

Ray Mitchell wrote:

> Yes whether I do a desktop backup to Windows 95, 98 or
> 2000Pro, I still run into the 2Gb limit. Yes I can create 4Gb
> files directly on my Win200pro box but not from the sme server.

Unfortunately you can create a backup file of greater than 2GB from the server, but not restore from it. The limitation is the temporary file which needs to be created by the restore process. The backup file is created on-the-fly and isn't subject to the limitation at the server end.

The use of temporary files is also the reason that there is such a delay on restore/verify from desktop. The browser likely first creates a temporary file, then sends that to the server which creates a temporary file, which is then run through gzip and tar to display filenames and/or restore files. Creating two temporary files of greater than 2GB takes quite a lot of time - and free disk space.

We recommend tape backup (prefereably SCSI) for non-trivial amounts of data.

Charlie

[dean]

Yeh which version, has anyone tried pqdi?

[Duane]

What version of Norton Ghsot did you use to backup your SME Server?

[Ray Mitchell]

For the information of all:

From FAQ at
http://www.e-smith.org/faq.php3#8q24

What does the SME Server backup do?

The backup to desktop will compress the following directories to a file named smeserver.tgz:

/home/e-smith
/etc/e-smith/templates-custom
/etc/e-smith/templates-user-custom
/etc/ssh
/root/.ssh
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group
/etc/gshadow
/etc/smbpasswd

The backup to tape will backup all filesystems, however only the files and directories in the above list will be restored. The tape backup does a level 0

• backup using a program called flexbackup.

Both methods will backup MySQL data.

• Level 0 backups of "all" assume a new tape - this will trigger tape retension and erasure.

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[sixxeight]

You can use your new HD as 2nd HD and and 'mount' /home/e-smith/files to the new HD. So the Backup is much easier. After 'umount' the 2nd HD the are not many files to save. The 2nd HD can be saved by FTP. You can do the same with a single-drivesystem: resize the last Partition (with pqdi or so) , add an  new Part. and so on....

Ulf