Topic: Requesting help to backup my system

[WEBlance]

I'm planning to install a new harddrive in my server, make a fresh clean install of SME 7 and transfer all my ibay files to a external usb hdd. I jsut don't know how to backup to a usb hdd. Should I just plug the usb hdd to a usb port? Does sme install it automatically?

/Carl

[skydivers]

Should I just plug the usb hdd to a usb port? Does sme install it automatically?

On this link you can find some info about usb disks.

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/smeserver/7.x/smeserver-usb-disk-howto.htm

For backup you can use the dar2 contrib from dmay.

[skydivers]

Should I just plug the usb hdd to a usb port? Does sme install it automatically?

On this link you can find some info about usb disks.

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/smeserver/7.x/smeserver-usb-disk-howto.htm

For backup you can use the dar2 contrib from dmay.

[asys]

What i do is connect a usb hdd to my desktop computer as i am connected to all the drives on the sme server as well as i am connected to all user/homes being the administrator of the sme server and I use ezbackit-up (free software at www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup) and thats how I do a backup of all the ibays here every week.

[rkscscc]

Found this topic, it seems on par so asking here...

The standard "Backup to USB drive" in admin menu of SME, would the file system on the USB drive be the reason why backups are seemingly made but not been able to restore?

Have external USB Sata case, 160GB Toshiba SATA HDD, connects to SME as a usb device...  Formatted with NTFS.  Backup picks up the drive and then does its thing for ages backing up, only so often see lights on the HDD light up...  Checking afterwards, no data has been written to the device...

This may sound like a dumb question, but I'm afraid my knowledge of file systems regarding this is limited.  I know linux can read and write to ntfs, just that this seems to be the logical answer to my worries about backups not being made....

Any input appreciated, flames won't get you anywhere...

[byte]

The standard "Backup to USB drive" in admin menu of SME, would the file system on the USB drive be the reason why backups are seemingly made but not been able to restore?

Yes, from tests I've done you need to make sure your drive has a valid partition table and is formatted to EXT3.

[rkscscc]

Thanks byte!

[jaapie23]

I've done restoring from an USB disk by using restore from desktop, when added the USB drive to my desktoppc.

Also a good solution to backup is using rsnapshot.
And mount your USB drive to have rsnapshot copying the files to that drive.

Use the rsnapshot version for SME there is a nice howto on this forum.

[brentonv]

i would stick with AFFA http://wiki.contribs.org/Affa to backup complete systems and use BackupPC http://sme.firewall-services.com/spip.php?rubrique2 for everything else

regards,
brenton

[rkscscc]

Affa is great when moving servers, but no point for backups...

Still need to make backups of the machine in between installing new servers every XX amount of years... 

[dmay]

What i do is connect a usb hdd to my desktop computer as i am connected to all the drives on the sme server as well as i am connected to all user/homes being the administrator of the sme server and I use ezbackit-up (free software at www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup) and thats how I do a backup of all the ibays here every week.

The procedure you follow will most likely drop all Linux rights and ownership information. Be careful and check this to confirm as you may find a full Disaster Recovery restore may not work.

Darrell

[mercyh]

Quote from: asys on March 19, 2007, 04:20:43 PM
What i do is connect a usb hdd to my desktop computer as i am connected to all the drives on the sme server as well as i am connected to all user/homes being the administrator of the sme server and I use ezbackit-up (free software at www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup) and thats how I do a backup of all the ibays here every week.

The procedure you follow will most likely drop all Linux rights and ownership information. Be careful and check this to confirm as you may find a full Disaster Recovery restore may not work.

Darrell

DMay,

You spoke my thoughts exactly. I had the exact some thing with a Disk2Disk backup using tapeware. I didn't realize that it was dropping the ownership and rights because I only tested my backup by restoring individual files. I spent a tense 12hrs rebuilding, restoring and restoring ownership and rights on one of my mailservers.

Lessons learned:

1. Test your backups thoroughly
2. Check logs daily
3. Use standard backup contribs



Royce H.

[misnerspace]

This is something I'm looking into as I want to move everything to a new server. Would the following be possible?

Back up to USB drive from the admin menu on the old server
Remove the USB drive
Plug the USB drive into the new hardware? I'm not sure if I should do that after installing SME 7.2 on the new server
Install SME 7.2 on the new hardware - I understand that a fresh install of 7.2 now has the following "Backups - USB backup and restore has been added to the console on a fresh install" according to http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=37872.0 .
Then restore from USB by selecting the console. I guess.....

I'm hoping to try this out next week, but someone please let me know if I'm barking up the wrong tree!

thanks

[rkscscc]

misnerspace -> you're barking in the wrong forest

http://wiki.contribs.org/Moving_SME_to_new_Hardware  describes the AFFA method of moving data to a new server, and that would probably be your best bet...

Though the description says that both machines should be at exactly the same rpm state (yum update on both) and that you should make sure that all your installed contribs on the old machine is installed on the new one before you start the copying process, I ignored that...

So, just go ahead and try that out, install contribs you need after your new server is running, and all should be well...


I can honestly say that I see the USB backup as a purely weekly backup solutions, and not one viable for the move to a new server...

[misnerspace]

hi rkscscc, thanks for the link, I think I'll try that!