Topic: Backup to USB

[eanda-sbs]

First off I hope I'm posting this in the correct area.  If not I apologize up front.

My question is simple.  I want to backup to a external usb attached disk.  Is there any preparation that I must do to the disk?  ie.  partition format to ext3?  I purchased a Seagate external usb that i'm sure was already formatted etc.  Secondly if I have to partition is there a specific named directory I have to mount the usb disk  partition on?  Not of this is laid out in the user manual.  It appears that I can just plug the usb disk in and then configure from server manager ie sets/rotations....  Any help would be appreciated.

[jester]

The file system needs to be recognizable by SME-Server, if you want it also to be readable from a Windoze box use Fat32 otherwise use Ext3.

The disk should be automatically mounted under /media/ and be selectable for workstation backups in the in the server-manager.

One remark though: be aware of the file-size limitation (< 4Gb) of Fat32. Backups are automatically split in to smaller slices so you will have no trouble there, but just be aware of this when using the disk for other purposes.

[jester]

Forgot to give you some more info on usb disks, look here: http://wiki.contribs.org/USBDisks

[eanda-sbs]

Ok.  Thanks for the info.  Here is what I set up.

I TB USB Drive with single ext3 partition.  Disk Label PDCBACKUP

After plugging in usb drive /etc/fastab mounts it in /media/PDCBACKUP

I set up my with the following:

Backup is Enabled.
Backup is made on local USB disk
Destination backup share folder is media/PDCBACKUP
Number of rotating backup sets is 3
Number of daily backups contained in each set is 7
Compression level (0-9) of backup is 6
Daily backup occurs at 12:00
Each daily backup session is cleanly timed out after 2 hours.except full backups which are cleanly timed out after 24 hours
Full backup sessions (new backup set) are allowed everyday

After 12:00 pm messages log indicates that the backup started and places information about the backup in /home/e-smithdb/backups

so it appears that the backup is running.  I don't have very much data on this server so I waited about 45 min and then looked at /media/PDCBACKUP and there is no data files present on the drive.

So is my backup actually there?  I don't know and dont know how to tell.

Also.  Does this backup everything on the server inclusing all setup configs plus all ibays / emails/ and web site or do I have to configure that specifically>

I'm really needing help with this.

[eanda-sbs]

Ok I have seen what happened.  After the backup it looks like the usbdrive is unmounted.  I did the following

mount /dev/sdc1 /media/PDCBACKUP
then ls shows that there is data present on the drive.

So my only question is is this a completely full backup including all configs  ,  users, web site, ibays and syste root and boot?

[jester]

By default, on an unmodified SME-Server installation (no contribs or manual alterations), will backup all necessary data for you to restore your server.

This is not a bare-metal restore process, it will require you to do a new, basic install from CD (only takes a few minutes), an update and a restore from backup. If you want to add extra files/directories tho the backup you can read about that here: Backup with DAR

[janet]

eanda-sbs

jester wrote:
This is not a bare-metal restore process, it will require you to do a new, basic install from CD (only takes a few minutes), an update and a restore from backup.

Note that you will also need to reinstall any add on contribs that are installed on your current server. The data for those apps will be restored from the backup.

For some general pointers re backup & restore see:
http://wiki.contribs.org/Backup_server_config#Backup_and_Restore_concepts.2C_issues_and_other_information
and
http://wiki.contribs.org/Backup_server_config#Standard_backup_.26_restore_inclusions