Topic: [HELP?] A little "backup with DAR" conundrum

[Elliott]

 

This morning a user asked me to retrieve and email that he had in his trash that he had accidentally emptied.

I set DAR up probably 2+ years ago and I faithfully watch the daily messages telling me that the backups complete. In fact, it's never NOT been able to make it's backup and copy it over our network to my backup server.

I've never had to restore anything. To make this medium sized story shorter, I went into the restore function and stepped through to find the latest listed incremental (from last night around 8 EST) and without paying attention to what I was doing started a restore on my active server.

Realizing what I did too late I jumped on the server as root and was going to kill the DAR process but someone already noticed IMAP folders disappearing and messages missing as old messages reappeared.

Now, 2+ hours later the DAR process is still running and users looking at their Thunderbird clients watch as Inboxes and other folders empty out and rebuild with messges from a variety of historical times appear.

I'm assuming that if I let it run we will be back to where the system was at 9pm last night with all of the new mail most likely missing. The thing I don't get is why old deleted messages and folders (I'm talking late 2007 and early 2008) would be appearing when I selected the restore of yesterday's incremental backup.

Does anyone have any pointers or suggestions as to what will happen? Should I kill the DAR process or let it complete? Should I cancel tonight's incremental since the server will be in an unknown state?

Also, the server-manager is requesting a reboot.

-Elliott 

[Elliott]

Also, would it be prudent to actually kill the smtp daemon so we don't potentially lose current incoming email?

If so, which services would that include? Just qsmtp?

[Elliott]

As I watch the dar processes in memory I'm realizing that it started with the latest incremental and is crawling through all of them.

Can anyone point out how to get my system to where it was at the time of the latest? I'm looking at the DAR2 info on the wiki and I'm realizing that what I used is actually the backup with dar contrib.

[janet]

Elliott

wait for the restore to finish and make sure you select the reconfiguration option.....and then go and learn how to manually restore individual files ie configure the dar mc plugin and use mc (midnight commander)

[Elliott]

Where would I find the reconfiguration option? Back under the backup/restore panel in the server-manager?

I've since stopped the qsmtpd as well as other email centric services to hopefully avoid losing more email. My secondary server is holding incoming mail (hopefully) in the meantime.

And is it safe to assume that since all users are IMAP and don't keep local folders that any email that came in after last night's incremental and the time I shut the services down will be lost?

Thanks,
E

[janet]

Elliott

Where would I find the reconfiguration option?

In the dar backup restore panel

Re mail, yes or certainly up to the time that the mail folders were replaced by the restore process

[Elliott]

Elliott

In the dar backup restore panel

I don't see this mentioned in the wiki so I'm hoping that after it's done (should be about 20 more minutes) that I can go back into that panel and see this option?

Sorry for the questions but as you're the only person answering and the wiki/manual seems to be lacking I have nowhere else to turn right now... (and actually the manual {LINK} looks like another chapter is merged with the backup/restore page)

I wont make this misstep again, that's for sure. The boss man is already telling me to research a new mail server but I keep telling him this was my error, not the servers'.

I really don't understand how the set that this incremental is in has 177 incremental when I have it setup to only do one FULL on Fridays and six inc's on the other days. All four of the other sets are fine.

[janet]

Elliott

the dar contrib will prompt you to reconfigure and reboot IIRC

the manual is not referring to the dar contrib
it is referring to the dar backup that is now part of the base release
they are different backup systems

IIRC the dar contrib does full backups only and does not do incrementals so you are probably looking at 117 different backup jobs

When this dilemma is over I suggest you start using the built in backup function and/or sort out what is really going on with your backups, and remove the dar2 backup contrib
You might even look at the affa contrib as you can schedule multiple backups during the day and restore fully or partly to any point in time for which a backup has been done. As you say you have a backup server (I assume sme) then Affa will be easy to implement

[janet]

Elliott

The DAR2 contrib server manager panel is called DiskARchiver or similar, so I think you are confused and trying to restore DAR2 backups using the sme default backup or restore panel. Somone else reported problems doing this recently, so search the forums.

[Elliott]

No... I don't have DAR2. I have the standard backup with dar that's built in to the backup/restore panel. I know I started off with that description - i was jumping the gun on an assumption in the heat of the moment.

The restore finished and for the most part things are as normal as can be. A couple of users seem to have corrupt inboxes and I'm currently trying to locate where the heck the inboxes even live in this distro.

[janet]

Elliott

Please be more accurate in future and consider those trying to help. You and others only waste peoples valuable time with incorrect and misleading information.

I'd suggest you refresh the IMAP folders in Thunderbird.

You manage a sme server and have no clue on the folder structure ! Type mc at the command prompt and start learning.
Data is in /home/e-smith/files/ibays/ibayname/....
User mail is in /home/e-smith/files/users/username/Maildir/...

[Elliott]

Sorry for misleading. It was definitely fear of loss setting in.

I did find the mail directories. I was hoping to find Inboxes since 5 of my users have corrupt ones now and can't receive incoming mail.

Refreshing folders and even deleting and resetting up the accounts on the client side does no good. It seems like the restore process actually somehow resulted in some corrupted files.

People can see messages in their inboxes but clicking on them results in blank screens and forcibly marking them as read results in them instantly going back to unread status. Sending these particular users email doesn't get to them or bounce so I'm not sure where they end up.

Harrumph.

[janet]

Elliott

The incoming unread Mail is in
/home/e-smith/files/users/username/Maildir/cur
Unread mail will be in ..../new

The error you describe sounds very much like incorrect permissions or ownership

Search these forums on Maildir for the answer re fixing thes

Your restore process has not worked correctly. I note you had users using the system while the restore was in progress, not a good idea as any unforseen outcome could have happened.

Whether trying to work through individual fixes for each problem you discover, or running the restore again, will be the better option I'm not sure, as I cannot tell how many other problems your system has.

By the way, it is incorrect to restore to a "used" system.The ONLY recommended restore procedure is to do a fresh install of sme OS and then perform a restore and reinstall any add on contribs.

This will fix mail ownership, but that may not be the only problems you have.
cd /home/e-smith/files/users/username
chown -R username:username Maildir

replacing username with the actual user name, do this for all users on the system

The GOLDEN RULE with any backup system is to fully test both your backup and restore procedures, and of course know how to use them.
Not remembering or never had to do it is no excuse.
Make adequate notes and refer to them when needed