Topic: backup SME 6.01 to windows box...recommended solution

[Joseph_dew]

Hi guys,

pretty new to SME...looks like a reasonable system though.

I am having trouble backing up the entire system to a windows box (no other linux boxes available) and was wondering if some suggestions might be forthcomming.

This issue seems to be that you cannot transfer more than 4GB across the builtin backup function of the SME web management interface.

A quick search revealed this is a known issue and there seemed to be slim pickings for workarounds.
One promising link was the backup2ws...however being new to SME I am hesitant to install anything on the server before getting a full backup.


I thought about using a ssh tunnel and piping a tar file through that...anybody done that before?

I will continue browsing the forum looking for a solution...the search function seems a little crippled.

Would be great if someone could point me in the right direction though.

[Mumm-Ra]

backup2ws works perfectly but you must make sure that you download the beta version for SME 6.0.1 at http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/smeserver/6.x/beta/backup2ws/

[Joseph_dew]

Cheers for that suggestion.

However I managed to find another solution for the mean time..prehaps in the future I will implement backup2ws.
I didn't install the system, and the guy who did is no longer around. So I am helping out with a disk upgrade and wanted make a complete backup before I screw around with it. There is nothing worse then not being able to get back to where you were before.

What I did was install copssh on a windows XP box and then ran this from the sme server:

tar -cpf - --directory / --exclude-from=/tmp/tar_ex . \
| ssh Administrator@windowsbox \
'cd backup; cat > sme_server-20-10-2204.tar'


Where /tmp/tar_ex contained the following:
/proc
/dev

Will definetly look into backup2ws for a more permenant backup regime.