[SOLVED] Backup on Open Source Edition

[tapan.thapa]

Hi,
Is there any way wherein we can take zimbra open source edition backup like zimbra network edition. If yes kindly elaborate and if no kindly let us know how we should backed up and what we should backed up in case if Disaster Recovery.

[phoenix]

It would have been better to create a new thread (I've moved it from that thread) rather than add it to one that's a year old.

Please search the forums and wiki for an answer to your question - it's been covered many times.

[tapan.thapa]

Thanks for informing but i was not aware with the wiki. Well i have download this script and wanted to know what parameter i should configure in this script.

# Modify the following variables according to your installation
#########################################

# backup_dir - directory to backup to
backup_dir=/path/to/backups/$time (=/opt/zimbra/backup/$time) ?

# vol_group - the Volume Group that contains $zimbra_vol
vol_group=PUT_VOL_GROUPNAME_HERE (=Not Aware) ?

# zimbra_vol - the Logical Volume that contains /opt/zimbra
zimbra_vol=PUT_ZIMBRA_VOLNAME_HERE (=Not Aware) ?

I have installed zimbra open source to its slandered location. Kindly help me to solve this problem. although my installation directory is /opt/zimbra and my logical volume name is /dev/sda3

[dwmtractor]

This thread and the wiki are helpful but they tell us about backing up the entire /opt/zimbra tree, which is obviously useful for preserving the settings, etc. However, I'm not sure I want to back up this whole tree every night given that settings and configurations change a whole lot less frequently than do message stores themselves.

I'm thinking I'd do a complete backup either weekly or monthly, but would like still to back up my message stores every night. In what subdirectory does Zimbra store the mailbox stores, and maybe user-defined settings? Are there other folders that, if I were to choose to do a two-level backup, really should be backed up every time? By this I mean, if I were to restore a three-week-old complete backup, and then restore the nightly message-store backup on top of it, are there other folders that must be part of the nightly to keep the setup from blowing up?

Thanks

Dan

[mmorse]

I'm thinking I'd do a complete backup either weekly or monthly, but would like still to back up my message stores every night. In what subdirectory does Zimbra store the mailbox stores

If you plan on grabbing the entire /opt/zimbra/store every time you might as well grab the whole /opt/zimbra
+ There's a whole lot more needed than just the messages-mysql, ldap...(ZCS Architectural Overview)...that's why there's the Network Edition which allows both full and incremental hot (live) backups of individual mailboxes

(granted-to be safe from time to time I backup all zimbra directories-especially when doing upgrades)

Grab some insight from the always popular /forums/migration/565-full-server-backup-restore-open-source-version.html
Even though it was attempting to do a hot full backup, and kinda ended with 2 cold scripts (one lvm one perl), you'll start to understand the complexity of the full backups in general - and the more complex incremental backups based off of the fulls.

(mubley) The first script developed in that thread-lvm method:
Open Source Edition Backup Procedure - ZimbraWiki

(czaveri) Perl w/ rsync method:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zcstools/
https://sourceforge.net/project/show...roup_id=177874
designed to:

1. Stop Zimbra
2. Backup Zimbra in the specified local directory using Rsync
3. Start Zimbra
Optionally, if you specified, this script will also do the following:
1. Rotate the backups
2. Send the backup to another system using Rsync
3. Email the results of backup

[dwmtractor]

OK, after having spent much of the morning reading the referenced threads, which are interesting but somewhat (a LOT) over my head , I think the whole sound & fury appears to be mostly around live hot backup. This is not my concern; we're a small company, we don't need all the fancy stuff, and if I did I think I'd probably have the budget for Zimbra NE anyway...

All I want is disaster recovery, and basic 24-hour restore. For that, a simple script stopping Zimbra services, backing up /opt/zimbra, and restarting them is truly all I need. In fact, I've scripted this to be a whole lot simpler than anything on that other thread by simply doing a tar -xcfz on the whole /opt/zimbra directory, and then ftp'ing the tarball to another machine. I hope that isn't oversimplification to the point of uselessness, but if I understand all the threads, it should be possible for me to restore my server by simply reinstalling Zimbra from the original binary (4.5.6 in my case) and using the same machine name, domain, etc), then restore my tarball back over /opt/zimbra in the new machine. Is this correct?

If it is, the only intent of this thread is not a repeat of the other one, but rather this question:

Assuming that I don't mind stopping Zimbra services to do my backup, but thinking that for nightly backup I only want to back up those files and folders that are changing regularly, does it make any sense to do smaller backups on a nightly basis and big ones (the whole /opt/zimbra) on a less frequent basis? If I correctly understood the other threads, the answer to this question is "no," but I want to be sure I'm "getting it."

[phoenix]

If you stop the services then rsync will do a complete backup for you in a relatively short time, use the following commands:

# rsync backup

rsync -avrlHKpogDt /opt/zimbra/ /data/backup/zimbra

# rsync restore

rsync -avrlHKpogDt /data/backup/zimbra /opt/zimbra

Obviouls that's to a local disk but you can do it to a network share with very little extra effort.

[dwmtractor]

That sounds easy and I'll give it a try. Once I rsync it, is there a problem (in terms of restore, permissions, etc) with tar and gz'ing that synced folder and ftp'ing it offsite?

Thanks for your quick and coherent responses, Bill. Much appreciated!

Dan

[phoenix]

No, there should be no problems with permissions. I've used it myself to backup, tar the backup folder then restore in a xen domU - works fine on my tests.

[mmorse]

If it is, the only intent of this thread is not a repeat of the other one, but rather this question:

Assuming that I don't mind stopping Zimbra services to do my backup, but thinking that for nightly backup I only want to back up those files and folders that are changing regularly, does it make any sense to do smaller backups on a nightly basis and big ones (the whole /opt/zimbra) on a less frequent basis? If I correctly understood the other threads, the answer to this question is "no," but I want to be sure I'm "getting it."

Yup-the answer is essentially back up the whole /opt/zimbra

All I want is disaster recovery, and basic 24-hour restore. For that, a simple script stopping Zimbra services, backing up /opt/zimbra, and restarting them is truly all I need. In fact, I've scripted this to be a whole lot simpler than anything on that other thread by simply doing a tar -xcfz on the whole /opt/zimbra directory, and then ftp'ing the tarball to another machine. I hope that isn't oversimplification to the point of uselessness

lol-you just simplified:

https://sourceforge.net/project/show...roup_id=177874
designed to:
1. Stop Zimbra
2. Backup Zimbra in the specified local directory using Rsync
3. Start Zimbra
Optionally, if you specified, this script will also do the following:
1. Rotate the backups
2. Send the backup to another system using Rsync
3. Email the results of backup