Topic: Backup file size limitation on SME 7.0 Pre 2

[arne]

I'm sorry I am not to updated on the SME server just now.

One thing I'm courios about .. the backup to workstation function used to have a file size limitation of 2 (4 ?) Gb.

Does this limit still exist for the 7.0 Pre 2 release, or has it been extended in some way ?

(No, I have not tried the Pre 2 yet, but I will do it quite soon ..  

Arne.

[gordonr]

One thing I'm courios about .. the backup to workstation function used to have a file size limitation of 2 (4 ?) Gb.

Have you tried searching the bug tracker?

http://bugs.contribs.org/query.cgi

Status: Open
Product: All
Words: backup

[arne]

I found it, and I looked into it. Have a suggestion:

Divide the backup function up into two different operations.

1. Backup to a compressed file on the server itself. (I actually made such a script myself one time, but now I lost it.)

2. The download the file as a separate action.

When you select "backup to compressed file on server" then there should be a choice to select between a http downloadable and a ftp downloadable area.

I beleve that linux distros as iso files are quite easy 600 MB or more, ad they are downloadable via web (??) and ftp (??).

A modern small HD is 40 GB and a big one is 400 GB. There should normally be space enough to store a backup file of 4 or 10 GB.

If the task is diveded into the two different tasks 1. "Back it up to file" 2. "Download it to workstation from file on the server" I belive this can be implemented quite easy.

The reason that I can not do this change myself is because I don't know how to integrete such a backup and restore function in the server-manager.

By the way .. when I did it like this with bash scripts for a while ago, I did actually never check that the backup tofile worked for files bigger then 2 or 4 GB, but I believe it would (??)

Just some ideas to try to simplify the problems around the very important backup function. For remote managed sme servers it wold be a very nice option tobe able just to backit up to file on server, and then download it when conveninent.

Best reg Arne.

[arne]

Forget this sentence. It was a thought with really no good thinking behind it:

I beleve that linux distros as iso files are quite easy 600 MB or more, ad they are downloadable via web (??) and ftp (??).

(What I was thinking about was a possible limitation of 4 GB filesize for the Apache server, and then my calculations went wild with a factor of 10. )

[gordonr]

Just some ideas to try to simplify the problems around the very important backup function. For remote managed sme servers it wold be a very nice option tobe able just to backit up to file on server, and then download it when conveninent.

All of these suggestions, and more, are in the bug tracker.  Your basic suggestion requires approximately half of the disk space to be free for the backup file.

Tape works reliably, and backup to desktop works fine for very small servers with only a small amount of user data (e.g. gateway boxes).

There are also various other backup options available as contribs (e.g. backup2ws and friends).

I am also looking at rdiff-backup, which looks like an excellent solution for USB disk backups and offsite copies.

What we need is people implementing solutions (e.g. as Darrell has done with backup2ws and friends). We then need to decide which ones to pull into the base.