Topic: Manual Backups

[jbillings]

I have installed SME server for a small non-profit agency, with a scsi tape drive for backups. We have 5 tapes, but I just don't feel like they need to switch tapes every night, and then their is the potential someone will forget to change the tapes.  One option is to teach the program assitant who mostly maintains the server, and is fairly tech savy, how to manually kick off a  backup by loging into the server using putty.  I am leaving this as a way last resort though, as explaining root and ssh are conversations I'd rather not have, when everyone is so happy using the web admin interface.  Another option would to just enable nightly backups before you want to make a backup, and then come back the next day and disable them again.  The ideal situation would be to add a new option to the admin menu to just do a one time backup.  Does anyone know if this has been done before?  

Thanks in advance.

[raem]

You could install the user manager panel contrib.  Configure it (using server manager) for that user to only have access to the backup panel. The user would login with their own username and password instead of admin pw. No command line to have to use, easy !

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/mitel/contrib/user-manager/

[jbillings]

I don't get it?  What does the user manager contrib do?  Don't have a problem with the user having the admin password, just would like to make it as simple as possible to manually kick off a one time backup.

[raem]

It is a user accessible equivalent of server manager and can be configured to only give certain users access to certain server manager panels, instead of the all the panels.

Very handy for giving users limited access to server manager panels such as the backup panel. It's exactly what you are asking for.

See the dungog help file for more info in Admin Guide/User Manager
http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dungog/help/

[jbillings]

The user-manager contrib doesnt appear to configure tape backups.  I think it would only confuse things more. I am going to just try the nightly backups for awhile and see if that works.

[raem]

I have user manager installed and I can see the Backup or Restore server data panel. You need to select Configure tape backup from the Select available actions pull down list.

Before it will work you do need to configure access rights for each user before they will see other server manager panels (other than the default 3 or 4 panels).
Run server manager first and then select User panel access (under Security), and select a User and then select which server manager panels they will have access to (ie tick the boxes). In your case make sure the Backup panel is selected for the User you require to access it via user manager.