[SOLVED] Yet Another Backup Script for Community Version

[Waffles]

That backupweek file seems to work perfectly so far!

I changed cron last week to do the full backup on thursday 12:00am then do an incremental on friday and that worked.

Then I set it up to do it as we were intending, do a full backup on saturday (midnight) and then incrementals every day after.

So far so good. Thank you! Great idea. Should be moved to the "official" script.

[Waffles]

Only thing I would really add to that backupweek file mod is to do a mail_log if the backupweek file isn't found.

Other than that, it has been working great! Thanks again!

[mek1]

Anyone using this backup script in a Red Hat EL5 environment? We can do Fulls, however Diffs aren't functional.

./zmbac.sh -d

Diff Backup started at: 09:21
archive enable = no
Doing a hotsync of to
nice: a command must be given with an adjustment
Try `nice --help' for more information.

rsync had threw an hotsync error this is not that wild... continuing
Stopping the Zimbra server

crontab: user `-l' unknown
could not backup 's crontab...
continuing with out changing users crontab!

[liverpoolfcfan]

Not using on RHEL5 - but on CentOS 5.3 which should be the same thing.

Both Full and Diff work correctly.

Diff Backup started at: 09:21
archive enable = no
Doing a hotsync of to
nice: a command must be given with an adjustment

Did you copy above directly from console ?

The fact that you have no folders listed in the Doing a hotsync line above suggests you have not run the --INSTALL option to set up the correct folders for the backup.

Here is what I get when I run ...

"Doing a hotsync of /opt/zimbra/ to /tmp/fakebackup/"

PM me with an email address, and I can send on my tweaked copy of the script if that is of use to you.

[heinzg]

Hi All,

with the help of Vincent we have uploaded a new bugfixed script, available on the osoffice.de website.

Please note the following:

THIS SCRIPT IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS

'AS IS' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT

LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR

A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT

HOLDERS AND/OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,

INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,

BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;

LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED

AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,

OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF

THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


Please test and let us know if more fixing.

A big cheers for the grand user base support for this script and to the users who contribute to it!!

heinzg

[pebcomputing]

borngunners, i was receiving this error also:

Parse error on command line (or included files): Invalid argument for -A option
Dar had a problem!

and think i've figured out that it is due to the attempt to create a diff backup for a given week without the presence of the corresponding full backup file normally created on the Monday of that week. after i ran a full with the -f option, the backups began running smoothly agian.

[heinzg]

Hi!

Sure thing, you can't create a diff if you have not created a full backup before.

Cheers
Heinzg

[heinzg]

Hi All,

The script has been updated with the possibility to allow the Full backup to take place on any day of the week. Cheers Vincent for the patch!

You can download v.0.7 from the Home*-*Open Source Office Lösungen website...

Please note the following:

THIS SCRIPT IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
'AS IS' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED
AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF
THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Please test and let us know if more fixing is needed.

heinzg

[khalilamar]

What about a linux + xen running a virtual zimbra
I've been told that if you backup zimbra this way, it's less time consuming
and easy recoverable in case of disaster.

correct me if I am wrong, but in zimbra, every email is a file. (stored in mysql?)
and backing up all emails for a school district can increase the downtime for a backup.

Anyways I didn't try this out but it seems that tech folks and seniors students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (VA. USA) are doing this.

thought worth to mention it.

cheers


howtoforge.com has a tutorial for a xen intro
Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.4 (x86_64) | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

[heinzg]

What about a linux + xen running a virtual zimbra
I've been told that if you backup zimbra this way, it's less time consuming
and easy recoverable in case of disaster.

correct me if I am wrong, but in zimbra, every email is a file. (stored in mysql?)
and backing up all emails for a school district can increase the downtime for a backup.

Anyways I didn't try this out but it seems that tech folks and seniors students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (VA. USA) are doing this.

thought worth to mention it.

cheers


howtoforge.com has a tutorial for a xen intro
Paravirtualization With Xen On CentOS 5.4 (x86_64) | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

Hi khalilamar,

I will try keep the answer short.

correct me if I am wrong, but in zimbra, every email is a file. (stored in mysql?)

This is almost correct... meta data of each mail is kept in mysql, the message itself is in the mail store in file format i.e. 1 message file per mail.

When running zimbra as xen linux guest, backing up the disk image file of the xen guest is the the simplest way to back up and restore... in fact anything not just zimbra.
But you have to remember to shutdown the guest or save it (shutdown is better as to flush the RAM before backing up....and so on) now Shutting now the OS plus zimbra... then doing a tar with gz of the image.... can take a very long time if your mail server has more than a couple of mails. Because you have to copy not only mail files, but also the OS. Ok you are smart and have put zimbra on its own disk image. This will stall cause as long a downtime of the zimbra server as to shutdown the OS, plus the time to actually IO way the the disk image.... and then to start the OS + zimbra... I could tip min 10 min for a mail server with 50GB.
Now the other issue you will run into, is that this is a binary full backup every time you backup, i.e. 50GB in our example even if only 10MB of data changed.... Can you see where this is going?

This idea of script from day one was to minimize downtime and backup storage space. I think it is safe to say that the down time you can expect is the time it takes to restart zimbra +5%...
Your full backup of 50GB is any way compressed... so lets say it is about 20GB... then every other day you do a diff backup only the data that has change since the full backup is backed-up and compressed.

I hope this sheds some light onto the different concepts of file based backup and binary disk backup in virtual environments

P.S. them serious tech folks could instead of running the xen guest with a binary disk image, they could use a lvm volume for the guest.... and in this way they could use the grand lvm snapshot feature! But still you would have to shut down the OS and so on again....
I personally use KVM for my home and test server, XEN was yesterday

Hope this was of little help,
hope my english was ok not going to spell and grammar check this... just pressing submit SORRY