Topic: How to do a FULL tape backup from a Windows Workstation?

[Robert]

Does anybody know how to back up the files in /root from a Windows workstation? I have a tape backup drive but it is in a Windows workstation which is on the network on which an SME Server 5.6 is the main server and domain controller. I can access and back up all the user data in the i-bays from the workstation, but couldn't find a way yet to access the "guts" of the Linux box (/root) from the Windows workstation. I know I could have the tape drive in the SME box, but it is SCSI and I don't have a SCSI card in the server and I need it in the workstation as it is used to drive other SCSI stuff. Is there a way to do a FULL backup of the server from a Windows workstation including the /root? One that can be used as a full backup which can eventually be restored to rebuild the whole server on a new hard drive in case of a hard drive failure on the server?

[brian kirk]

Maybe use software like Ghost to make an image of the drive.
Regards
Brian

[Jesper Holck]

Have a look at this:
http://www.e-smith.org/docs/howto/contrib/flexbackup-to-disk-howto.htm
Jesper

[Kelvin]

Note : The flexbackup to disk method still suffers from a backup size limit of 2GB. As there is no way to tell SME to just backup the system config minus the ibays, this will not work for you if you have significant amounts of data in ibays.

Kelvin

[Robert]

Thanks to all of you who are trying to help out here - really appreciated. Could anyone point me the right direction as to how to simply access the root files from a Windows workstation as a first step? That wold be a start, and I could probably figure it out from there. My biggest problem is that I don't know how to get to these files from the Windows box. Thanks.

[Johan]

Hello robert,

If you have a tape streamer on you workstations (windows) you can use BackupEexec from veritas. They can backup allmost everything for unix/linux they have een clientagent to install on your sme server then you can select in the backup programm simply the sme server and what you want to backup.

I now this software is not cheap, but if you have a view server's whit different OS's witch you must backup it's a good solution.

We used it here on on every site that we managed, and on alle site's we have a mixed OS Unix/NT/Netware/and Linux (SME)

You can look to thes software on wwww.veritas.com and a demo of this software is downloadeble.

Grtz and goodluck

Johan

[shane]

Load OpenSSH onto the win box and configure as per the instructions.
Download "WINSCP2" which will allow you to browse the SME root mount point.
Then you can copy (drag and drop stuff) to your hearts content.
Hope this helps

Shane

[Ray Mitchell]

Robert
This link may be useful

http://www.dungog.net/sme/products/backup.php

Also have a look at
http://myezserver.com/
downloads
mitel
howto

HowTo use rsync for backup to disk
and you would need to mount your windows share (search previous posts for how to do this)

Regards
Ray

[Ray Mitchell]

Robert

I searched for
mounting a windows share
all dates and found quite a few good refernces such as

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=3450.msg11707#msg11707

http://www.e-smith.org/bboard//read.php?f=1&i=19679&t=19679

These should get you going !!

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Ray Mitchell]

Robert

This thread exactly answers your need

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=2314.msg7756#msg7756

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Kelvin]

Robert,

The only way you can do a "proper" full backup of the SME server is to go through SME's backup script. Just merely copying all files from root onwards won't really do as any SQL tables, etc. will pose a problem especially if you ever need to restore them.

If you don't want to reinvent the wheel, consider Darrell May's backup2ws package which uses RAR to create backups (including multi-segmented backups) to the workstation. As backup2ws allows you to specify the size of the segments to create, it also allows you to get over the problem with the 2GB file size limit faced by the backup to desktop function as well as other contribs like flexbackup-to-disk.

Being able to mount a windows share to the SME server does little to solve your problem either as you are likely to face file size limits as well (confirmed for SME up to 5.5, not sure about 5.6 yet), due to limits in a number of packages / libraries. It's not because your NTFS share cannot hold large files or that SME 5.6's file system cannot handle large files. It's because other things like smbfs which may have the size limitations (to be confirmed for SME 5.6). So even though flexbackup may be able to handle large backup files, you cannot use flexbackup-to-disk to send that backup to a windows share as smbfs (which is used to talk to the windows share) does not support single files larger than 2GB (again, to be confirmed for SME 5.6).

Kelvin

[Bill Talcott]

I too am using Veritas BackupExec with their Linux agent to back up the SME with our NT servers. Works great, though I haven't had to actually restore anything yet...

[Ray Mitchell]

Robert and others

I have just installed Darrell May's Backup2ws on a 5.5 server, which allows backing up (and restoring) of server data to a workstation disk. Backup method is RAR or rsync. It seems ideal to do backups to a removable or fixed disk configured as a network share.
It is so easy to use, just access it from server manager or user manager, and quite easy to set up different backup sets. Lots of plain english descriptions to simplfy the process. You can do a FULL backup of all folders, or include only some folders and also exclude certain folders as required/desired. Any/all/some of the backup sets can be configured to run at predetermined times, and you can keep a preset number of old backups for each set.

There is also a Disaster Recovery backup (and restore) set that will backup all the essential files needed to get your server back to the way it was prior to a bad crash and fresh install of the OS and restore. A slightly modified backup set would allow just the user configuration information to be backed up, ie exclude ibays etc.

I have not tested file size limit issues extensively at this stage (if there are any), but there is provision to split the backup file to specified size chunks ie CDR size, or whatever size you want.

It is quite a simple but impressive tool to manage backups to disk. I congratulate Darrell May for this fine piece of work. I wish I had looked at it earlier.

Anybody considering doing backups to disk should look at this program, see http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/mitel/contrib/Backup2ws/

Backup2ws seems like it could overcome all the problems mentioned by users in these forums about backup to desktop and restore etc etc.

It would also cover the situation where you backup to a disk on a workstation and then backup the file to a tape drive on the workstation.

The only query I have is does it close databases (MySQL) before doing the backup ??

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Robert]

This is a great contrib. Just one warning: DO NOT install the "wrar310.exe" that is downloadable from the same site as this contrib as the winrar is infected with a trojan. Fortunately I didn't install the winrar (the Linux files are clean), my virus scanner caught the trojan inside the compressed install file during a routine scan.

Robert

[Cyrus Bharda]

You might want to notify the author Darrell May of that fact then

Cyrus Bharda

[Ray Mitchell]

Robert
What trojan did you actually find in the WinRAR compressed executable ?
What virus scanner are you using ?
I scanned my download using using NAV2002 with the latest virus definitions and found no infection. I also scanned the unpacked files and also found no virus.
Your scanner may be detecting the executable code and thinking it has the id of a trojan virus ??
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[James Douglas]

any answers to the mysql backup question??

Also, can I use this to backup to a local disk on the same machine? (rsync i guess?)

I agree that this is an amazing addon and a must have for those backing up

[Robert]

I am using Avast Antivirus (www.avast.com), which found a trojan in the file (I don't remember what it was exactly and I don't know if Avast (which is one of the best I've seen) mistook something for a virus, but I have seen it the other way around too (earlier I tested most of the major antivirus programs to see for myself how they measure up and the "biggies" (McAfee, Trend Micro, Norton) both assured me that my computer was virus free. Then I ran Avast and it found 3 viruses embedded in e-mail attachments. The others didn't see them, but when I extracted the e-mails separately and saved them in a separate folder, then all the "biggies" found it too. If you want to try it for yourself, you can download a free home edition of Avast and see what it comes up with.

So as far is Avast is concerned, the file is infected with a trojan, apparently the others say it doesn't. I would rather err on the side of caution and not use it, but then again, Avast may be wrong.

Robert