Topic: [ANNOUNCE] smeserver-dar2

[dmay]

[ANNOUNCE] smeserver-dar2 released

Beta is completed. Thanks for all your feedback. I have just uploaded my official release. Smeserver-dar2 provides for server backup & restore from a network share (workstation/server) or an attached USB disk. This contrib is an extensive rewrite/updating of smeserver-backup2 and uses Disk ARchive (http://dar.linux.free.fr) as the backup engine. This contrib is meant to supercede backup2 however I do not force this. Switch at your convenience.

As soon as mirrors sync you will find the following in my contrib dir:

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/smeserver/7.x/

Contrib rpm and required rpms:

smeserver-dar2-0.0.1-0dmay.noarch.rpm
dar-2.3.1-1.i386.rpm
perl-CGI-FormMagick-0.92-08.noarch.rpm

After install see the server-manager panel:

Backup
- Disk ARchive

General discussion is welcomed on this forum. All bug reports or new feature requests (NFR) should go directly to the contribs bug tracker:

http://bugs.contribs.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=SME%20Contribs
Component: smeserver-dar2

Additional resources found in my contrib dir include:

Windows binary for using dar via command-line on Windows XP:

dar64-2.3.1-i386-windows.zip

Documentation is available here:

http://dar.linux.free.fr/doc/index.html

How To for configuring an external USB:

smeserver-usb-disk-howto.htm

Regards,

Darrell

[dany_it]

Hallo!
I've tried this contribs and it seem very interesting!!

I have tried a full backup, as default, but I have a problem when I extrac with dar -x option the files in a windows system:

the files are extracted ok, but the *.exe seem to be impossible to open with an error that say that I haven't the correct permissions... All others files work good and I can open, but the *.exe I can't.

Any help?

Thank you very much!

Bye,
Daniele.

[jameswilson]

also just thought can you throttle the cpu use when its backing up, i have a website on my server that runs so slowly when backing up

normally a page is generated in 0.122 seconds during backup its 4 or 5 seconds

[cactus]

also just thought can you throttle the cpu use when its backing up, i have a website on my server that runs so slowly when backing up

normally a page is generated in 0.122 seconds during backup its 4 or 5 seconds

Isn;t there some way to lower the priority of the backup process in favour of the webserver?

[egerards]

I just installed this contrib. Looks very promising!

I want to run a full backup of my system to a usb attached hard drive. /home/e-smith/files/ can be excluded, because I already have regular snapshots scheduled with rsnapshot (cool tool!!).

The default backup selection is:
etc/e-smith/templates-custom
etc/e-smith/templates-user-custom
etc/group
etc/gshadow
etc/passwd
etc/samba/secrets.tdb
etc/samba/smbpasswd
etc/shadow
etc/smbpasswd
etc/ssh
etc/sudoers
home/e-smith
root

If you want to perform a full backup, it seems to me that this list is not covering the full system. Am I correct that if you want to make a full backup, you simply add every directory found in '/' to the backup selection (/proc and /tmp excluded of course)? (And in my case I can exclude /home/e-smith/files .)

Anyone experience with a full backup?

[egerards]

also just thought can you throttle the cpu use when its backing up, i have a website on my server that runs so slowly when backing up

normally a page is generated in 0.122 seconds during backup its 4 or 5 seconds

Isn;t there some way to lower the priority of the backup process in favour of the webserver?

Haven't tried it yet, but you might consider a 'renice 15 <PID>' ?

[piran]

Code: [Select]

renice 15 <PID>
What is that all about please? Looks interesting to say the least;~)
When I use DAR2 over the intranet the target drive's capabilities keep
the backup run in check, when I do the same with a drive local to the
server (USB or eSATA) all hell breaks loose;~/ Both processors go
straight into redline utilisations, everything else 'backs up' ie slows
down while the system attempts to write the backup locally.

[EdelingF]

Darrell,

I've installed your contrib and I see the server-manager panel.
I created a backup job (//MyPC/SME_backup/Ibay/) and when I perform a backup in a few seconds I get the message "Operation status report SUCCESS"
However, nothing is backupped or maybe backupped but not transfered to my WinXP PC.
Dit I do something wrong?

Freek

[egerards]

Code: [Select]

renice 15 <PID>
What is that all about please? Looks interesting to say the least;~)
When I use DAR2 over the intranet the target drive's capabilities keep
the backup run in check, when I do the same with a drive local to the
server (USB or eSATA) all hell breaks loose;~/ Both processors go
straight into redline utilisations, everything else 'backs up' ie slows
down while the system attempts to write the backup locally.

If you 'renice' a process to a value above 0 (the 'nice value' can be between -20 and 20), the process gets less attention of the process scheduler which is part of the Linux kernel. This way processes with the default priority (0) won't be slowed down too much.
The rsnapshot job on my system that runs at least 6 times a day is also rather resource demanding. By giving it a nice value of 15, my system stays more responsive. I start the job by 'nice -n 15 <COMMAND>'.

[dmay]

...By giving it a nice value of 15, my system stays more responsive. I start the job by 'nice -n 15 <COMMAND>'.

If you feel this is a valuable addition please open a NFR bug ticket. Perform some tests using various adjustment levels and add your test results to the ticket. Test both network share and local disk backups. As a minimum report base overall completion times and cpu utilization curves during defined jobs, then add various adjustment levels and report changes.

Darrell

[dmay]

I have a problem when I extrac with dar -x option the files in a windows system

http://dar.linux.free.fr/doc/index.html#Reporting_a_Bug

Darrell

[dmay]

.. it seems to me that this list is not covering the full system.

The list is generated from the core e-smith-backup program and includes everything needed to recover a default sme server build to full operation.

Darrell

[dtech]

Hi dmay;

I'm a little confused about the whole incremental backup functionality, or lack thereof, of this contrib (thanks for your effort, by the way); this thread seems to suggest that your contrib does NOT have incremental backup functionality, and this one http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=34187.0 (not started by you) seems to suggest that it does. I've installed the contrib and I can't seem to find anything that suggests incremental. What's the official word?

Secondly, and a little off topic, is that in my opinion incremental backup on smaller networks is valuable. Resource limitations are a big motivator. The system I use now, some cron/tar scripts, gives me a full system backup every Sunday with incremental backups during the week. It is a nice balance between resource consumption (disk space) and backup completeness. I guess a combination of your contrib and my scripts is the way for me to go. But I notice you're now working on an rsync type of contrib; I wonder if a combination of dar/rsync contribs is a good middle ground?

-P

[egerards]

.. it seems to me that this list is not covering the full system.

The list is generated from the core e-smith-backup program and includes everything needed to recover a default sme server build to full operation.

Darrell

Ok, that's clear. 'Unfortunatelly' my SME installation has got quite a number of additional rpm's installed. For a full backup I would at least need to backup /usr and /var as well (or certain parts of them).
So I am still wondering which selection list I should use for a non default SME installation.

Does anybody have experience with full backups of a customised SME installation?

[raem]

egerards

The concept of a full system backup (& restore) requires careful consideration.
See
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=27097.msg111256#msg111256

The way I do it is to swap one RAID drive out every so often, and do daily backups.
In the event of a major failure I can install the removed RAID drive, rebuild the array and then sync the data to the last good backup.

It's a trade off of fiddly selective restoring, versus a clean install, restore & reinstall of contribs etc.