Koozali.org: home of the SME Server

Legacy Forums => Experienced User Forum => Topic started by: Mike on October 18, 2002, 07:33:59 AM

Title: General Backup
Post by: Mike on October 18, 2002, 07:33:59 AM
Hi Guys,
      How can I backup all data in my SME Server? Is that possible that when I change my hard drive from 8 GB to 20 GB I can restore my previous configuration such as users, mails and configuration to the newly installed SME Server in 20 GB. What sholud I do?
I'm running SME 5.1.2 with horde 2.1 and IMP 3.1, Hard drive works at IDE environment.

Thanks


Mike
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Ray Mitchell on October 18, 2002, 03:16:53 PM
Mike
You will need to do a tape backup if you have a lot of data.
You could try a backup to desktop but Windows has a file size limit of 2Gb so if your data creates a backup file larger than 2Gb, it won't work.

You could try copying all your ibay data and user home folder data onto Windows workstations, and once copied delete the files off the server but leave the empty ibays there.
This will free up a lot of space and then you could do a backup to desktop, which needs to be less than the 2Gb limit again, but this will have all your user configurations, ibays, email, server setup  etc.

Then do a clean instal on your new hard drive and then restore from desktop, and then copy your data from the Windows backups back to the server ibays and home folders.

It's a bit of a juggle, but I have done it a few times and it works OK.

Much easier if you have a tape drive though.
Regards
Ray Mitchell
Title: ntfs?
Post by: Erik Fleischer on October 18, 2002, 07:37:58 PM
If your workstations are WinNT or Win2k, XP, you don't have the 2 gb size limit, actually

NTFS uses 64-bit cluster indexes. This capacity gives NTFS the ability to address volumes of up to 16 exabytes (16 billion GB); however, Windows 2000 limits the size of an NTFS volume to that addressable with 32-bit clusters, which is 128 TB (using 64-KB clusters). The following table shows the default cluster sizes for NTFS volumes.


In other words if you have a ntfs volume, you don't normally have a sizelimit.
Title: Re: ntfs?
Post by: Charlie Brady on October 18, 2002, 08:05:39 PM
Erik Fleischer wrote:
 
> If your workstations are WinNT or Win2k, XP, you don't have
> the 2 gb size limit, actually
...
> In other words if you have a ntfs volume, you don't normally
> have a sizelimit.

No, there is a 2GB file limit, but it's at the server end.

Charlie
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Tom Veitch on October 18, 2002, 11:31:34 PM
Yeah I just used ghost and it worked
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: mike on October 19, 2002, 06:11:28 AM
Guys thanks for you all advise, I will try it all for sure...

God Bless


Mike
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Ray Mitchell on October 19, 2002, 10:05:10 AM
Thanls for that confirmation Charlie,
Yes whether I do a desktop backup to Windows 95, 98 or 2000Pro, I still run into the 2Gb limit. Yes I can create 4Gb files directly on my Win200pro box but not from the sme server.
Regards
Ray Mitchell
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Rob Wellesley on October 19, 2002, 05:37:46 PM
Tom Veitch wrote:
>
> Yeah I just used ghost and it worked


Which version Tom?

rob
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Charlie Brady on October 19, 2002, 08:20:56 PM
Ray Mitchell wrote:

> Yes whether I do a desktop backup to Windows 95, 98 or
> 2000Pro, I still run into the 2Gb limit. Yes I can create 4Gb
> files directly on my Win200pro box but not from the sme server.

Unfortunately you can create a backup file of greater than 2GB from the server, but not restore from it. The limitation is the temporary file which needs to be created by the restore process. The backup file is created on-the-fly and isn't subject to the limitation at the server end.

The use of temporary files is also the reason that there is such a delay on restore/verify from desktop. The browser likely first creates a temporary file, then sends that to the server which creates a temporary file, which is then run through gzip and tar to display filenames and/or restore files. Creating two temporary files of greater than 2GB takes quite a lot of time - and free disk space.

We recommend tape backup (prefereably SCSI) for non-trivial amounts of data.

Charlie
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: dean on October 23, 2002, 09:00:55 PM
Yeh which version, has anyone tried pqdi?
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Duane on October 28, 2002, 07:52:30 PM
What version of Norton Ghsot did you use to backup your SME Server?
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: Ray Mitchell on November 15, 2002, 02:27:12 AM
For the information of all:

From FAQ at
http://www.e-smith.org/faq.php3#8q24

What does the SME Server backup do?

The backup to desktop will compress the following directories to a file named smeserver.tgz:

/home/e-smith
/etc/e-smith/templates-custom
/etc/e-smith/templates-user-custom
/etc/ssh
/root/.ssh
/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group
/etc/gshadow
/etc/smbpasswd

The backup to tape will backup all filesystems, however only the files and directories in the above list will be restored. The tape backup does a level 0

Both methods will backup MySQL data.



Regards
Ray Mitchell
Title: Re: General Backup
Post by: sixxeight on November 24, 2002, 03:39:26 PM
You can use your new HD as 2nd HD and and 'mount' /home/e-smith/files to the new HD. So the Backup is much easier. After 'umount' the 2nd HD the are not many files to save. The 2nd HD can be saved by FTP. You can do the same with a single-drivesystem: resize the last Partition (with pqdi or so) , add an  new Part. and so on....

Ulf