backing up zimbra via cron issues

[ben1967]

Dear All

I am using zimbra OSE 7.1.4 and I have 2 scripts which I just modified a little for my environment.
the first creates a .tgz file
and the second ftps this file to another machine.

when I run them everything works great and no issues

but when i run them via cron i face problems

first zimbra does not start and also backup is not done
i do backups in the night so in the morning i have to restart zimbra or maybe restart the machine

i tried googlin arround but not achieve much

here below my scripts
the files are executables

---------

#A Simple Shell Script Method

#!/bin/bash

# Zimbra Backup Script
# This script is intended to run from the crontab as root

# Outputs the time the backup started, for log/tracking purposes
echo Time backup started = $(date +%T)
before="$(date +%s)"

rsync -avHK --delete /opt/zimbra/ /root/backup

service zimbra stop
sleep 25

# Kill any orphaned Zimbra processes
ORPHANED=`ps -u zimbra -o "pid="` && kill -9 $ORPHANED

rsync -avHK --delete /opt/zimbra/ /root/backup

service zimbra start
# Calculates and outputs amount of time the server was down for
after="$(date +%s)"
elapsed="$(expr $after - $before2)"
hours=$(($elapsed / 3600))
elapsed=$(($elapsed - $hours * 3600))
minutes=$(($elapsed / 60))
seconds=$(($elapsed - $minutes * 60))
echo Server was down for: "$hours hours $minutes minutes $seconds seconds"
--------------------

the second script

--------------

#!/bin/bash
#
USER="xxxxx"
PASSWD="xxxxxxx"
SERVER="192.168.100.33"
ftp -n -i $SERVER << EOF
user $USER $PASSWD
prompt
bin
put /tmp/mail.backup.tgz
bye

------------------------------------

I really would appreciate if someone could advise me and help me out.
do i have to rename the file with .sh extension???


regards

simon

[xero9]

Good day Simon,

What does the line in your crontab look like? I know it's something pretty basic, but are you calling the script by its full path? eg.

0 2 * * * /opt/zimbra/scripts/backup.sh

By the way, while I can't comment on every linux type system, I know under CentOS for example you don't require a .sh extension. As long as it's chmod +x on the file.

When testing out cron jobs, I sometimes add to the top of the script a date > /tmp/date.txt and look for that file to see if the script is executing at all. It's one of my very basic debugging methods, but it does the trick sometimes

[ben1967]

dear xero9,

I really apprecite your quick reply
i will check once again tonight and let you know since I can do any testing now

regards and thanks once again

simon

[lytledd]

service zimbra stop
sleep 25

I really don't think using service will work. This is what I do:

su - zimbra -c"/opt/zimbra/bin/zmcontrol stop"

Doug

[xero9]

np Ben!

lytledd is right though, after testing it myself, I'm able to do 'service zimbra stop' as root and it stops, but when trying through cron it doesn't actually work. Use his line instead, and that will at least stop Zimbra.

Sorry, I am by no means an expert. Just thought I'd try and help out!

[ben1967]

Its solved,
Dear guys,

I have solved the issue.
first was changing from service zimbra stop and start to su - zimbra -c"/opt/zimbra/bin/zmcontrol stop" and start
actually I am using centos 5.7
the second was to specify the full path to rsync and tar
also I changed my backup script extension to .sh but guess that does not matter

after that i did find that the tar archive normally which is supposed to be abt 7.5 gb was stopping at some .5 gb

so finally i found out that in the cron job I had to append confirm >/var/tmp/zbackup.log 2>&1

/root/zimbra-back.sh confirm > /var/tmp/zbackup.log 2>&1

and this worked flawlessly

Thanks guys for all the help

regards

simon

[untnine]

Hi everyone,

I backup my zimbra server and copied the files (backup files: mailboxes, master database and all files) to other server to test the consistency of the backup.

First I copy all files: replaced the new zimbra files with those from the backup;
Then I tried to import the master database to my new zimbra and had problems.

Can some one help on this one???