Topic: Restoring across versions

[Andrew]

G'day all,

By now it is common knowledge that there are issues for some upgrading to 5.6.  One thread suggested doing a backup in the old (existing) version, doing a complete install of 5.6 (not an upgrade) and then restoring from the backup.

Is this possible?  If it is, will it work with a desktop backup?

Thanks for advice,
Andrew.

[Ray Mitchell]

Andrew
Yes that should work OK, remember though the desktop backup does not backup ALL filesystems, but does backup all the user data referred to in e-smith FAQ.
I note a bug re the netlogon.bat file, which needs to be manually restored, so make a separate copy of it first.

Depending how much data you have on the server you may have problems if the backup file size is greater than 2Gb depending on your OS, so test it first. WinRAR can look at the backup file, also use the Verify backup to desktop function in server manger.

Have fun
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Andrew]

Thank you Ray,

My desktop backup file runs to about 3GB but I might do a separate backup of these first, delete them from the server and then I can (hopefully) just restore the user accounts and ibays.

These things usually end up being considered "fun" some time down the track when the bugs have been ironed out - but I'll do my best.

Thanks again,
A.

[Kelvin]

I generally don't like to perform in-place upgrades of servers (unless I really, really have to -- and even then I try to avoid it). I much prefer to install a clean copy and work up from there.

The problem with doing this with the servers I work on isn't the ibay data - that's easily taken care of as most of the servers have very few ibays to worry about (lot's of files and data but very few ibays required). It's the user / account database.

I have all along wished that there was a utility to only backup and restore the user and group accounts (along with passwords) and nothing else - zip, nada. I don't want the utility to backup customisations, systems settings - nothing. I just want the user and group accounts and passwords (including pseudonyms of course). This little utility will not only help in server upgrades / migration but can also be used as a poor mans means of user account synchronisation across multiple servers.

Just my 2 bits.

Kelvin

[Ray Mitchell]

Andrew
See my post at
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=6775.msg24360#msg24360

You may have trouble restoring from your 3Gb file !!
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Andrew]

G'day again Ray,

I did, in fact read your previous thread.  I posted my own :

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=6640.msg23912#msg23912

sometime earlier and came across yours as I continued searching for answers.  Sometime after I read your post I had a reply to my own:

I (and many others) experienced this same errorand I reported this as a bug to Mitel. They acknowledged that there is a problem upgrading SME Server with less than the minimum requirement for RAM. (They told me in an e-mail that it's now roughly 256MB). Backup, perform a fresh install,and restore. It woked for me.

And That pretty much clinches it as far as I am concerned.  My poor little server is a P160 and I only have some 64MB of RAM.

As you point out the 3GB backup is a bit of a problem.  Not least because I also have a little Mandrake 9 box and none of the stock browsers in the distro will download such a file so I have to back up to my W2K box.  I will probably burn all the SME user data and ibays to CD, delete them from the server and then create a desktop backup (a much smaller one) and go from there.

Thanks to you, and to Kevin, for your advice.

Cheers,
A.