Re: [cobalt-users] Backup -Raq4r - rsync, raqbackup, afio..

[Jeff Lasman <blists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 22 January 2004 10:56 am, Jim Dory wrote:

> It doesn't look like I am backing up any system files with this..
> poking around in the tar'ed files with mc, I don't see them.

Because they're not there.  CMU backs up sitespace and userspace.

You can add other directories to rackbackup.sh as well.

> So I'm looking at how to do this.
...<snip>...
> So I guess the question revolves around how to do a complete system
> backup once in awhile, and nightly user data/logs file backups.
> (Should I add /var/logs/ to raqbackup for nightlies of those?)

One way is to always have an extra system around (or perhaps an extra 
hard disk), configured as an up-to-date RaQ of the same model you host 
on, with only the default site set up, but with all the extra software 
you normally use.

Then restore to that system (or if you only have a drive, then install 
that drive in the broken system and restore the CMU to it.

That's the easiest way, and frankly the one I highly recommend; it gets 
you back up and running more quickly than anything else.

> I've been looking at this awhile and I'm not clear on whether I can
> just do a
> "rsync /" or
> "flexbackup -fs all" or
> "find . | afio -ovZ /dev/tape"  or not.

I'm not sure of the specifics, but I will point out that if you rsync 
the entire file system to Your Suse backup server you'll break it; your 
standard PC won't run out of the box with a Cobalt filesystem.

Nor will you be able to just take out the drive and move it to your RaQ.

> I'm not sure how that works with running processes like mysql and all
> (which should be backed up with raqbackup) or if I need to shut down
> stuff first. Not even sure what questions to ask <grin>.

Everyone will tell you that you can't copy over mysql and other open or 
continually changing file systems, but our experiments show us that you 
can as long as you don't care if the contents are usable or not.

While this sounds like a deal-breaker it's not.  You really don't care 
if your logs are up-to-date or not, since the backup will be old at 
best before you ever use it.  Nor do you care about the contents of the 
email boxes, since they'll be old as well.

Nor the contents of the mysql filesystem, since your rackbackup.sh 
output will give you a much more up-to-date backup of that.

rd making it gel.
>
> Anyone care to comment - I would greatly appreciate help?

-- 
Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net, P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517 US
Professional Internet Services & Support / Consulting / Colocation
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