Server Backup Strategies Imaging & tarballs

[ShinZan]

So I have my new 1.07 server running and the hard drive is a 1tb SATA

in the olden days with 1.0 i would make an acronis image of the server and also keep tar balls of the home directories (which of course had the database backups as well)

I wish i had this going on a VMWare box but i don't....

So anywho i try to make my initial backup with Acronis and 1 hour later its still plunking along and doesnt look like its going to end anytime soon. So i try acronis 9, 10, 11, but not 12 since i dont have that version.

all 3 versions are either crapping out or taking forever. its the same hardware as the 1.0 server (same server actually) the only difference is a 1tb hard drive vs 250gb.

So my question to the community is: how are you guys backing up and what are the best options? For instance could i simply tarball the whole data partition and reinstall ubuntu from scratch do the apt-get for all the packages and then untar that archive back putting back /etc /var /home etc etc and then my server would essentially "be back" I'm trying to wrap my head around best practices for backing up linux and ispomega in light of acronis no longer really being an option. I can tar up and move stuff off via scp or a cron easily but taking the server offline for 2 3 4 hours plus to back it up doesn't seem like an option.

When acronis took 14 minutes to backup the whole server life was good now not so much.

Thanks for listening

David

[ShinZan]

No one has any non vmware backup strategies?

[joximu]

There are a lot of possibilities - the right solution tightly depends on your possibilities + knowhow.

dd -> to make a 1:1 copy of a disk or partition
tar -> originally for tape archive but also good to make backups
rsync -> the power tool for making backups and archives (eg. rsnapshot)

but for rsync (and tar) you need to be sure which folders you need to safe/sync.
E.g. normally /usr is not needed to be backupped. /var/log depends on you...
etc etc... you have to decide.

A not bad start may be /etc, /var and maybe /root - if you also have a list of installed packages, then with theese infos it's not to difficult to setup a new machine with the same config+data.

But /var/lib/mysql: you better make db dumps, otherwise you would need to stop the DB while syncing or saving theese files....

/J

[ShinZan]

(03-09-2012 03:06 AM)joximu Wrote:  There are a lot of possibilities - the right solution tightly depends on your possibilities + knowhow.

dd -> to make a 1:1 copy of a disk or partition
tar -> originally for tape archive but also good to make backups
rsync -> the power tool for making backups and archives (eg. rsnapshot)

but for rsync (and tar) you need to be sure which folders you need to safe/sync.
E.g. normally /usr is not needed to be backupped. /var/log depends on you...
etc etc... you have to decide.

A not bad start may be /etc, /var and maybe /root - if you also have a list of installed packages, then with theese infos it's not to difficult to setup a new machine with the same config+data.

But /var/lib/mysql: you better make db dumps, otherwise you would need to stop the DB while syncing or saving theese files....

/J

Thanks Joximu and to clarify If i backup /etc /var /log (optional) and /root and then reinstall ubuntu on a new machine and put back these 3 directories i will have a restored machine?

David

[joximu]

well - there's one file that installs ispcp on /usr - you need to copy it when doing a restore.
-> /usr/sbin/maillogconvert.pl

But otherwise: I'd say yes - with /etc/, /root and /var - you're able to restore everything. MySQL-Data: better make dumps or stop mysql during backing up with tar...

And Restore: use same distribution... of course.... :-)

[ephigenie]

Good choice as well :

put /var/www on a Logical Volume and create Snapshots on a regular base ( and delete old ones of course ) ..

[joximu]

(03-13-2012 06:48 PM)ephigenie Wrote:  Good choice as well :

put /var/www on a Logical Volume and create Snapshots on a regular base ( and delete old ones of course ) ..

Ok, then you have the Websites with the nightly backups of the customer databases (if enabled). You don't have the current databases or the mysql db of mysql.
You don't have the mails and you don't have /etc which I personally don't want to miss in a backup.

/J

[ShinZan]

(03-13-2012 11:19 PM)joximu Wrote:  

(03-13-2012 06:48 PM)ephigenie Wrote:  Good choice as well :

put /var/www on a Logical Volume and create Snapshots on a regular base ( and delete old ones of course ) ..

Ok, then you have the Websites with the nightly backups of the customer databases (if enabled). You don't have the current databases or the mysql db of mysql.
You don't have the mails and you don't have /etc which I personally don't want to miss in a backup.

/J

I like the physical volume idea and to round it out it seems it should be:

/etc
/root
/var
/usr/sbin/maillogconvert.pl

and then resotre using the same distro copy all this stuff back and I'm good to go. That seem right?

David

[joximu]

Should be fine.

But better you learn some linux knowledge so you can proove it.... :-)

/J

[ShinZan]

(03-14-2012 09:36 AM)joximu Wrote:  Should be fine.

But better you learn some linux knowledge so you can proove it.... :-)

/J

Well said, I'm getting there, I have a mirrored piece of hardware (another Dell Poweredge Blade) and I will be trying out this exact restore strategy so we aren't learning the day of the disaster

I'm mostly a microsoft technologies guy and programmer, but I've started getting into linux more and more including branching out into PHP programming quite a bit more and I appretiate your help and guidance Joximu, Thank you very much.

David