RE: [cobalt-users] Backup again!

[Carrie Bartkowiak <ravencarrie@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 31 Jul 2001 15:43:29 +0100, Gavin Nelmes-Crocker mumbled 
something like:
>>The best solution currently for backup is to use the CMU and then
>>tar up the
>>resulting directory and ftp it somewhere else. Your method will
>>backup data
>>but not all the database entries, passwords etc required.

Gavin I disagree. Here's why:
When you use the CMU utility, it does *not* put the sites back in the 
same place that they were. For example, if www.foobar.com was in 
folder /home/site16 before, it won't be site16 once the CMU gets done 
- it will be some other folder.
Then when you restore the sites using your big tar file, you're going 
to be putting the wrong domain's files into the new/current site16 
folder.

I still think this is the best way (takes a while, but certainly not 
5 days - more like 5 hours):
1. Get a listing of all sites and what folders they're in by doing ls 
-la /home/sites. Print this out or write it down.
2. Make a text file with the domains listed one per line *in the 
order that they are incrementally in your /home/sites listing.
So if site1 is foobar.com, site2 is widgets.com, and site3 is 
somedomain.com, then your file would look like:
www.foobar.com
www.widgets.com
www.somedomain.com
If you *really* want to save yourself some time, you can read the 
instructions for the shell tools and turn each of these lines into a 
comma-delimited set of settings for each site. Meg size, number of 
users, web aliases, ftp enabled or not, ssl enabled or not, etc.
3. Use a little perl script to parse this file and send the domains 
(and their accompanying settings, if any) to the Shell Tools. The 
Shell Tools will automatically add the domains with all of the 
settings you specify, and the domains WILL show up in the GUI. 
This takes mere SECONDS, not hours as it would if you did it by hand 
through the GUI.
4. Go through the GUI and write down/type each user's settings. What 
site they belong to, username, alias, forwards, site administrator or 
not, alloted space, etc. etc. etc. This takes a while, and is usually 
best to have someone helping you (you start at the top of the list, 
they start at the bottom, meet in the middle!).
5. Make another text file with each user's info - one per line - and 
again make a little script that will send this info to the Shell 
Tools(use a generic password for all users, as you'll change this 
later). Again, the shell tools will add the users and they'll show up 
in the GUI. And it takes SECONDS.
5. Now you can go in and untar your big backup tar file, or if you 
are more conservative and careful (like I am), untar each site's 
individual tar file. Check it after untarring and make sure 
everything is owned/grouped properly, etc.
6. Take the passwords from the old machine's /etc/shadow and 
/etc/shadow - files and copy them into the new machine's /etc/shadow 
and /etc/shadow - file. Now your users have all of their old 
passwords.

Now your sites and users are all restored, and all you need do is 
finish tweaking the server's settings to your tastes.

The fact that the CMU changes the /home/sites/siteX directory for all 
of the sites is a huge bumble. Any hard-coded paths in CGI scripts 
are now wrong. A huge backup tar file of /home/sites has all of the 
sites in the wrong place, belonging to the wrong folder, and you'll 
spend forever moving them into the correct places and hoping you 
didn't miss anything, then chowning/chgrping them back to the proper 
user/group since you've got to move them as root and that tends to 
screw up ownership permissions...

Just become very familiar with the Shell Tools, and you'll be doing a 
lot LESS work when you have to migrate or backup.
--
CarrieB
"I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and 
violence, I would advise violence." --Mahatma Ghandi