Topic: Backup to Disk for 5.1.2

[Adam]

Hello there,

I was having a read of some HOW-TOs and saw one there for using Flexbackup to backup the server to another machine. It says it is for version 4.x etc. Will this run on 5.1.2 ? If not are there other easy methods to achieve the same result ?

cheers,

Adam

[Rob]

I tried it on 5.1.2 and it didn't go. Have a try (copy all files that you change first) and see if you get it going. I emailed des duggan who couldn't help me. Haven't tried it on 5.0

[Adam]

Thanks Rob,

I can't do any harm to the system by doing this ? I'm a newbie here and not 100% sure what gets installed where etc.

cheers,

Adam

[Jay]

No it didn't work for me either on 5.1.2

I now use a cron'd cut down version of the web backup util which backups the server to an smb mount point /mnt/backup
The script is

/sbin/e-smith/signal-event mysql-delete-dumps
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event mysql-dump-tables
tar cfv /mnt/backup/esmith.tar /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
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event mysql-delete-dumps

This seems to work, and the web restore verify says the archive is valid.

[Des Dougan]

I haven't had the opportunity yet to test on 5.x (I only recently upgraded from 4.1.2). That said, I don't know of a reason it wouldn't work - all it basically does is redirect the data stream from the tape device to a disk share. I will try to test it this weekend on my test box and will report my results.


Des Dougan

[Adam]

Thanks Des,

would appreciate it.

Adam

[Des Dougan]

I've just set up my test server to run backup to disk, per the flexbackup How To. It's running the backup at the moment, and seems to be working fine. I didn't find any changes to be necessary compared to running under 4.1.2.

If you need anything clarified, please let me know.


Des Dougan

[Adrian Weir]

Hi,

I have tested the backup to disk howto on my 5.1.2 box and have not had any problems. I have also tested it after performing the recent update and everything is still o.k.

I must admit I did make a typo or two here or there and nitially had problems, but after following the instructions word for word everything then magically worked.

I did however make amendments to the process:- I set /mnt/backup to mount to a removable 20GB HDD by adding this /etc/fstab

/dev/hdc1/      /mnt/backup  ext2    noauto,rw  0 0

This allows me to backup to the removable drive (the type you can power off with the key) which can be removed in the morning and a new disk inserted for tonights backup, ensuring that you always have an offsite backup if you have few disks.

I also added:

rm -f /mnt/backup/*.gz
rm -f /mnt/backup/index*

to the 25mount-share file created during the howto. This removes any current backups so that you don't run out of space on the backup disk. I know this is not very eloquent but I am a Linux and SME newbie.

I would appreciate any input on how I could manage the deletion part better, eg when disk space is no longer suuficent then delete old backups, etc.

Also I would like to work out how to do a restore using the same method. I tried Des' howto on flexbackup restore and received permission denied errors, however when I ran the commands manually everything worked well, but I would really like to be able to do this using the admin frontend, any ideas?