Topic: Upgrade 7.6 to 8.1 - can't find the correct instructions

[judgej]

I have a 7.6 that has got in a bit of a state after a failed 8.1 upgrade. It boots, but with lots of errors (CentOS kernel stuff), mail not working, webmail broken etc. but the accounts seem to be intact as are the ibays.

What I would like to do (and I believe this is one upgrade path), is back the system up, install 8.1 from fresh, then restore the backup. The problem is, I cannot find instructions on how to do this. Upgrade paths I have found include yum, CDROM upgrades, and various other processes for corrupted filesystems and other special circumstances.

Some questions - the Backup and Restore option on the admin panel offers only backup to desktop, which is not possible with over 400G of data on this server. The only other option that looks like it could back up, is Configure Workstation, except I don't want to configure a regular network backup, I want to backup to an attached drive. Or do I have to do it to a workstation?

I'm sure I've seen a page in the past that takes you through these steps, but I just can't seem to find it now. There are lots of instructions around the various docs that say, "if you have a backup then you can restore it here...". It is just getting that single USB backup done that I can't find.

PS Maybe my server is so messed up now, that I will just need to build a new one, create new users and ibays and transfer everything over manually. I certainly hope I don't need to do that, and that the backup/restore will take the data in a largely uncorrupted state. I can only try.

Last question: can a 32-bit backup of 7.6 be restored to a 64-bit 8.1 fresh server?

Edit: Hmm - SME 8 has a "Perform backup to removable media" option on the admin console. I'm not sure 7.6 has that, or am I imagining that?

[guest22]

Maybe it's one of these pages that you are looking for?

http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Backup

[TerryF]

As I recall 7.6 does have a Backup to USB device on the console, Item 8

AFAIK 7.6 back can be restored to a 64 bit 8.1 fresh install, what can't be done is an in place upgrade of a 32 bit 7.6 to a 64 bit 8.1

[judgej]

As I recall 7.6 does have a Backup to USB device on the console, Item 8

Thanks. I'm due to collect the machine this afternoon, so didn't have it in front of me to check. If it works for me, I'll add this to the docs.

[judgej]

Maybe it's one of these pages that you are looking for?

http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Backup

That is the collection of just about everything I have found. There are a variety of backup solutions there (DAR, BackupPC, built-in backup etc) and I assume so long as I use the same method to restore as I do to back up, then it should work. I couldn't find the built-in backup to USB, but I think that is because it is in the console and not any of the GUI admin screens. I'll give that a go later today.

Thanks.

[guest22]

http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:Administration_Manual:Chapter6

[judgej]

The "backup to USB device" has taken ten hours so far, and is only 31% the way through organising the files it is going to back up (i.e. it is doing lots of disk activity, but has not written anything to the USB ext3 drive yet). Should I hang on here, in the hope that it will finish in the next couple of days, or abort and use a different backup method? Will any of the others be faster for large drives?

I thought maybe the backup was somehow looping back to the main drive, but I can't see that growing in size.

[TerryF]

So simple question, how much do you have to backup.

[judgej]

So simple question, how much do you have to backup.

About 400G, which I know is going to take a while, even over USB3, anyway. The numbers of files, are probably up in the millions. I've already removed about 30G of archive ibays, and another 30G from the recycle bins.

After this, I really need to get an archive regime in place. A lot of these files are finished with, but may need to be referenced at some point in the future, but seldom are.

Do you happen to know at what point the console backup starts actually writing to the USB disk? It's at 47% at the moment, and still nothing is written. I guess it is creating an index of files to work through.

[TerryF]

I have a system that backs up approx 100gb to a windows PC workstation with an external USB2 drive..takes around 12hrs

Not sure of other question and should take more notice, you mentioned backup size in first post..

[judgej]

Not sure of other question and should take more notice, you mentioned backup size in first post..

Easy to miss in a wall of text Thanks for the timings. I'm doing all this from home, without a UPS, so every switch I touch makes me very nervous, and doing the ironing this evening is going to be hell, because if anything is going to trip the power 98% the way through, that will be it...

[guest22]

ever considered to make a bit for bit copy of the HD to another HD, and then play with backup and restore?

[TerryF]

Good idea HF, and good luck to judgej

[judgej]

ever considered to make a bit for bit copy of the HD to another HD, and then play with backup and restore?

Yes, I *should have* done that initially. I was actually doing a yum update with all drives in place, and that failed half-way through (console got thrown out), so what I had was two mirrored disks with a partially working system. So I've unplugged one drive as my backup now, but am messing with the other disk for now. An update from DVD did not fix it, and I just do not have the skills or time to untangle the 300+ packages that are installed or partially installed in the kernel.

I have learnt my lesson - never, ever do a yum update of more than a point-release without unplugging one of the RAID disks first

So my aim now, is to treat the disk as a lump of accounts and data (and a barely bootable system - damn lucky it is not worse than this) and transfer everything to a fresh server.

Just as an aside, it was the POODLE SSL3 stuff that forced our hand in a quick update, after Thunderbird removed all support for SSL3 and TLS1, so we could not get to the mail through our normal clients. I think I was just in too much of a rush to get it done on Friday, and having taken other servers from 7.6 to 8.x using yum with no issues, was a bit too blasé about it. We live, we learn, we suffer for our IT sins. Well, I do.

I appreciate your help, and the suggestion of duplicating the disk was a good one, and I could have done that if I had not kept the RAID connected on my first attempt.

[janet]

judgej

The admin console backup to USB creates a single smserver..tgz file, so it may not write that until the whole file is created. With millions of files the CPU is probably very busy.
While the drive may be USB3, the USB port may only be USB2 or even worse configured for USB1.0.

In future you will be better off to use the server manager Backup to workstation option where you can select backup to a locally connected USB drive (please read the manual). Configure it to do a full backup & then daily incremental backups for a month or a few months or even a year. The first backup will take a long time but the daily incrementals may only take minutes or an hour depending how many files have changed.
Have a second USB drive to rotate every so often.