Full Server Backup and Restore of “open source version”

[czaveri]

One way, which, I feel, can be tried is depicted in my hot backup script I posted a few articles back. I haven't had much time lately to work on it but will try to progress the idea. I can confirm that it backs up ... restoration is something on which thinking is required.

To trap incoming e-mails when the mail server is down ... have 2 mail servers running... Zimbra and some other (maybe another Zimbra) with different priority MX. When the first one is down... the second one picks up mail. When the 1st one is up... retrieve e-mails from the 2nd one - and normal service continues until the next time you want to backup.

Something like what this company offers:
http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/s0306/prod/mailbk.html

(I don't know this company ... can't comment at all on its services, price, etc. Just came across while Googling)

BTW, if you are willing to pay for this service, better yet, is to get Zimbra Network! :-)

[czaveri]

Originally Posted by Dirk

The report email never did arrive. I'll be checking this script out on another installation shortly and see how that goes. In the meantime, which logfile, if any, may this have hit so I can see what happened?

Hi Dirk,

Did you get an e-mail notification from Cron in the mailbox admin@yourhost.domain.com ?

I am getting that, too. (In addition to the e-mail notification to the e-mail address specified in the script).

If nothing works then I can try to insert an "at" or "cron" job from the script to send you an e-mail after 10 mins of backup.

[Dirk]

Hey Chintan, nope no mail recieved at all. I've not yet had a chance to look deeply into your script as other work tasks have been taking all my time. For that matter, I've not yet set a cron job to do this backup for me, or even to test the live backup script.

Sometimes I think life would be much better if I didnt have to work for a living!

I can say that I tried running the script with the destination folder set to a mount point residing on a windows 2003 server, so that the backup would be off the zimbra server as soon as possible - it seemed to work but responded with an "rsync failed" message right near the end.

I'm thinking that tar'ing the folder up locally and then rsync or other copy method to another server would be more reliable, but again, not had time to check it out.

[czaveri]

Originally Posted by Dirk

Hey Chintan, nope no mail recieved at all. I've not yet had a chance to look deeply into your script as other work tasks have been taking all my time. For that matter, I've not yet set a cron job to do this backup for me, or even to test the live backup script.

Sometimes I think life would be much better if I didnt have to work for a living!

I can say that I tried running the script with the destination folder set to a mount point residing on a windows 2003 server, so that the backup would be off the zimbra server as soon as possible - it seemed to work but responded with an "rsync failed" message right near the end.

I'm thinking that tar'ing the folder up locally and then rsync or other copy method to another server would be more reliable, but again, not had time to check it out.

Dirk,

Yes, I will add this feature of TARing and FTPing the backup. I will also try to add a cron for 10 mins after backup so life is easier for all.

Will probably work this Sunday and get it done.

Thank-you very much for your help,

[czaveri]

Originally Posted by czaveri

Yes, I will add this feature of TARing and FTPing the backup. I will also try to add a cron for 10 mins after backup so life is easier for all.

Will probably work this Sunday and get it done.

Oops! Couldn't work this Sunday. Will wait until next holiday.

Originally Posted by czaveri

I have put it as a cron job on two of my systems and will check daily for two weeks. Will post my results then. Today is day 3.

15 days complete and I restored the backup. It works.

[gfdos.sys]

When you get a chance, can you repost the most recent versions of all the scripts that have been deemed "working", here at the end of this thread?

Thanx all!

One of the beautys of working with zimbra, by the time i find i'm having an issue, usually 4-100 admins are already having the same issue, and there is an answer!


FYI: I am still running on 3.0 GA, I want to have a way to backup and restore before I go to the latest and greatest, as a fall back in case something doesn't work right in the upgrade process.

[bjquinn]

Well, you guys are great -- I haven't looked at this thread for nearly a year, but it's great to see we're getting somewhere! At any rate, something occurred to me while catching up on this rather important thread (after all, what good is anything if you can't back it up?!?). While we're waiting for the work on the Zimbra hot backups to complete I wonder if the following idea would minimize downtime while doing a cold backup.

1. Sometime like 2am run rsync to backup /opt/zimbra while zimbra is still running.
2. Shut down Zimbra whenever that finishes
3. Run rsync (copying changed files only, of course) to refresh your copy of /opt/zimbra, hopefully taking far less time than if there wasn't already a recent copy to refresh
4. Start Zimbra back up

Short and simple. That way, you minimize actual Zimbra downtime yet you still get a good, in-sync backup.

Would this work while we're waiting for the attempts at hot backups to materialize and stabilize?

-BJ Quinn

[czaveri]

Hi BJ Quinn,

This looks like a good idea. need to check it out - that is, the restoration.

I was deliberately not using 'rsync' to sync, actually, and was using it as a more sophisticated replacement of 'cp' because I was not sure (am still not sure) if the symlinks will not be destroyed. (It so happens that someone told me a tale with a moral such as this).

So I never experimented syncing but only copying. (Does anyone know about the side-effects of rsyncing - if at all, there are any).

Let's give it a try.

[robbyt]

Originally Posted by gfdos.sys

FYI: I am still running on 3.0 GA, I want to have a way to backup and restore before I go to the latest and greatest, as a fall back in case something doesn't work right in the upgrade process.

if you want to make a simple backup, just to insure that your upgrade goes smooth, do this:

/etc/init.d/zimbra stop
ps aux |grep zimbra (to make sure zimbra is fully closed)
cp -av /opt/zimbra /opt/zimbra.backup

then run the upgrade-
if things get hosed, all you should have to do is replace /opt/zimbra with /opt/zimbra.backup

e.g.
/etc/init.d/zimbra stop
mv /opt/zimbra /opt/zimbra.hosed
mv /opt/zimbra.backup /opt/zimbra
/etc/init.d/zimbra start


now, there are other things that the zimbra installer touches outside of /opt/zimbra, like for example cron and init scripts... so this might not be a 100% fix, but it's better then having a hosed email server

[czaveri]

Hi,

I have just completed uploading zimbraColdBackup-Ver0.02beta.tar.gz at https://sourceforge.net/projects/zcstools/

Hope it is useful.

This one supports Rsync for sending data to some other system. Code is better than before, (though not the best).