Upgrade & Backups

[swu]

I'm planning to upgrade to 5.08 in the next few days. I plan on backing up the /opt/zimbra dir prior to the upgrade using the CLI that was suggested by the Zimbra folks in another post:

rsync -avHK /opt/zimbra/ /backup/zimbra

When I've used this before the rsync takes a *very long* time to backup the aprox 35GB that is in /opt/zimbra. On the order of 7-8 hours (RAID 1 w/SATA drives). It spends the most time moving all the inc and full backups.

Is there a faster way to grab the whole zimbra directory? Is the "best practice" to leave the backups in /opt/zimbra, or do folks redirect it to a dir outside of /opt/zimbra?

Of course I want to play it safe, but when I have to allot 8-9 hours to upgrade Zimbra, that makes it a long eve.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thx!

[alexkelly]

The good thing about rsync is that it will diff files. So you can do an initial rsync when you have the time, and even do subsequent rsyncs before your final rsync. Every one after the first one will just do the changes since the last one. In my experience, rsync is the fastest method of copying files.

As for the backup locations, I would personally recommend moving them to a filesystem unto themselves. If a backup fills the filesystem that your mail server is running from, your mail system dies. If it fills up a filesystem that only back-ups are on, then your backup fails but mail is still being handled and users never see anything.

[swu]

Thanks for the feedback. I have a "box stock" zimbra install and have been contemplating the backup location. Since backing up /opt/zimbra means copying the /backup dir, that will be unneeded if the backup location resides elsewhere - and will speed up the upgrade process greatly.

I'll stick with rsync and move the backup dir. Thanks again!

[Dirk]

Move the backup folder out of the way and then take a copy of /opt/zimbra whatever way you are comfortable with.

If the upgrade succeeds, then the backups will be useless and the installer will make a new /opt/zimbra/backup directory, and if the upgrade fails, you can return to your copied set without needing the backups anyway.

There's nothing to be gained by copying them at this stage.

Additionally, you should seriously consider storing the backups somewhere other than inside the Zimbra directory, as this cautionary tale will illustrate: The Most Important Post Ever » Zimbra :: Blog