Topic: restore from desktop always fails

[Peter Cowley]

Hi folks

Well I've been waging a battle to upgrade to 5.6 (doing a fresh install to another hard disk and restoring my user data, as an upgrade just won't work) but to no avail.  I've spent two full weekends on it but it still wont work.  (I fought the computer and the computer won - to badly reword the title of a song that comes to mind!)

It seems to me that the restore process is dependent on having enough memory to hold something in the untar process, not enough and it fails to read the tar file fully.  My backup gzip file is over a gig in size.  It takes ages to uncompress this and send it across the lan (about 1.5 hours).  SME then starts to restore the files, ... eventually.  It used to stop very early on in the process, after about 20-50 files or so, when I had 32meg of ram only in my server ( I know it is not enough).

I have now increased my RAM to 192 meg and the restore gets a lot further on, a few hundred files now, but alas still dies   I suspect because I have a huge lot of files, probably a couple of thousand) that the restore process is keeping something in memory and when that is full it crashes out ... (and Yes, I have done a backup AND verify to ensure the integrity of my backup!)

I think I'll have to give up on this restore and set the system up with two hard disks and manually copy the stuff over, but I do wonder about other folk who have large backups on workstations will do if they ever HAVE to restore.

Has anyone else had this problem?

What happens when a drive fails and you HAVE to restore (and then find it soesn't work!) -- I'll probably be able to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth all the way out here in New Zealand

I'd really like to know if there is a fix for this or if anyone else is aware of it being an issue.

Cheers
Peter

[Ray Mitchell]

Hullo across the ditch between Oz & NZ

Search the forums, there have been a number of posts about this.
From my own experience & with some good feedback from Mitel, it would appear that some browsers particularly MS IE 5.5 do not handle large (Gb) backup files very well. I had problems with IE5.5.5SP2 and the restore not completing, but Netscape 6 worked OK doing excatly the same restore !!
A faster processor, plenty of RAM and hard disk space also will help.
You should be able to restore a 1Gb file OK, if you follow the above, it will take a long time though, (maybe many hours).
I had restores that had not completed after 2 days on a slow P166 server using MS IE but took less than an hour using a faster AMD 1.2GHz and Netscape 6.
Regards
Ray

[Peter Cowley]

Hi Ray

Thanks for your advice.

I actually had a look in the tar file and ther were more tan 12,000 files (a bit more than the couple of thousand I said in my post).

I have a reasonabe PC, 1.3 Ghz with 500Meg of ram, but I never thought it could be the browser.  I will give netscape a try and see if it works.  Interesting.

It should be too big a deal to copy the smeserver.tgz file back to the server and untar it from there manually, but its obviously not what is intended.

I'll also have another look through the forum.

Cheers
Pete

[Ray Mitchell]

Let us know how you go with a different browser

Ray

[Peter Cowley]

Thanks for that Ray, it worked like a dream, and sooo fast too!

I must say I am so surprised it is the browser, I would never have thought of that one!

Unfortunately, in the end, my excitement was short lived (life can be soooo cruel sometimes and it didn't get me much further (other than that issue is sorted and hardened my resolve to get 5.6 going).  I got all the files over and rebooted but it would then not access the Internet.  Sigh!!  (well, actually I said far more than that, but I want to keep this respectable!!)

I am pretty sure I have some sort of hardware or motherboard/bios/hard drive incompatibility under 5.6. (pick any one??)  - knowing me I'll have several issues!)

I have booted off two different 5.6cd's and sometimes I end up with a regular login prompt for system localhost - no admin screen so goodness knows what the default password is.  Other times I do get the admin screen and can configure 5.6 but it can't access the internet with the exact same config I use for 5.5.  There is also often a message nd respawing too fast.  I ad a look through the boot.log and noticed some issued with USB, although it didn't seem to be fatal...as well as other seemingly minor things that don't happen under 5.5.

I wondered if it was a bios issues (I have an award bios dated 1998 but the only update is in 1999 and only seems to fix a minor display card issue) and since flashing the bios is potentially a very risky proposition for the unwary, I'm keen to not have to do it unless it will add signigicant value (or get my sme5.6 going )

I also wondered if it was because the new HD is 10gig and the old one (with working sme 5.5) is under 8gig.  I seem to recollect there is some issues with HD sizes and different bios chips - but I can't find a darn thing to say what size HD my bios can access.  (I have a Micro start mother board MS-5148 and although pretty popular decent info is hard to find!!)

Could be a kernal incompatibility too???

So.. I still have a significant challenge ahead of me, and I sure am learning a great deal, albiet involuntarily
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be very happy to hear from them.

Cheers
Peter (up to my armpits in the mire!)

[Peter Cowley]

I have some further info ...

I tried a fresh install for the umpteenth time.  It went OK and I could connect to the internet.

I did a desktop restore - it failed, I rebooted, reconfig'd and restored again, worked this time but after the reboot internet access not available.

When system was comming up it said httpd-admin FAILED
error_log shows: cannot assign required address: make_sock: could not bind to address 192.168.211.1 port 981

/var/log/messages shows messages that say eth0 cannot be found

boot_log shows:DCHPD: eth0 not found
ATALKD: eth0 not found

Dmsgs shows: nothing.

So, for some reason ethernet card 0 (which is exactly the same as ethernet card 1) can't be found under SME 5.6.  SME 5.5 finds it no problem at all though.

Any thoughts?  Should I more the eth0 card to another pci socket?

Cheers
Peter

[Ray Mitchell]

Well Peter, that's a lot of ranting and raving going on, one thing at a time I think.

> I got all the files over and
> rebooted but it would then not access the Internet.  

That suggests your settings in the backup file are different to what you really need or want now.

After the restore is complete do you actually receive the message that says, Restore complete (or similar) at the bottom of the list of files restored. If the restore has not completed things wont be right !

> .........sometimes I end
> up with a regular login prompt for system localhost - no
> admin screen so goodness knows what the default password is.
> Other times I do get the admin screen and can configure 5.6
> but it can't access the internet with the exact same config I
> use for 5.5.

If you do a restore the default password and all other settings are what were on the system you backed up.
There is a setting in the "configure this server" panel that either starts up to the admin console or to the login prompt.
Login as admin to access the server configuration console or log in as root to access the command prompt.

After the restore is done and you have rebooted, you might try running the instal again from the CD, but do a upgrade instal rather than a new instal. This will instal correct components for your system hardware, then instal any sme updates eg Update4

You should also run the Configure this server panel, and also go into server manager and check or reconfigure all settings

The hardware you are speaking of sounds like it is a few years old and is probably OK with 5.6, but check on the Red Hat site for the HCL Hardware Compatibility List, sme is just Red Hat with extras.

Regs
Ray

[Peter Cowley]

Hi Ray

Thanks for your response.  

Yes, the restore did work completely and I did receive the 'restore completed'  message at the end, then I rebooted and was able to log into the admin screen and I did double check the config. I have it all typed up and printed out so I can make sure I get it right.

The really weird thing is I can boot off the CD and install a fresh 5.6 system but get one of three different results each time:
1)  Sometimes it is "nd respawinging too fast", testing the internet connection fials
2)  Sometimes it seems to go all the way through then instead of getting the admin screen to set the root password, I get a login prompt for a system called localhost but since I have not received an option to set the root password I can't login or anything.
3) sometimes it works OK, I can enter my config and test the internet access and it works, but then after doing the restore and a reboot, it complains that one ethernet card (eth0) can't be found and won't talk to the internet (obviously since eth0 is the external interface)

Since 5.5 runs OK on the hardware, 5.6 should be able to as well, I would have thought.  I do suspect that something in the latest kernal is unhappy with my system but I have yet to find out what this is.  I will check the HCL again for kernal 2.4.

Cheers
Peter