Hi,
Gary Kopp wrote:
Arno,
In my case that hopefully wouldn't be too much of a problem -- Director
and SD on the same machine with local SCSI tape.
Ok, for one certain machine things are ofen different.
I like your idea of a CD boot, but it wouldn't allow me to make the
operation lights-out (I could script going to RL1, backup, and reboot to
RL3 -- I think :-).
Well, depends... you could prepare a second system on the same computer,
modify the boot loaders options etc. pp., essentially giving a switch to
RL1 - so nothing is won :-)
Obviously, I was thinking in a more general direction :-)
Anyway, as long as there are no vital services running on your machine,
nothing prevents you from using RL1. But make sure to use bacula with
SQLite - pgsql and mysql might not start up without network...
But it was pointed out in a non-public email that the only open files
typically encountered are databases, and database native backup tools,
piped to bacula, could be the solution there without changing run levels
or otherwise mucking with the system.
I wouldn't agree. Admittedly, there's usually no stuff like thousands of
locked files like under windows, but there might be lots and lots of
files in an inconsistens state. Like dhcp leases files or bind zone
files that are just updated but not completely written etc. And alhough
this is unlikely, it can happen and can lead to lots of bad surprises
after a desaster recovery. Just when you don't need any more surprises.
So, I wouldn't recommend to rely on everything except databases to be
consistent, but rather make sure that vital files are in a consistent
state during backup. Either RL1 or stop only the relevant services
during backup... hint: You can define your own runlevels with the
typical linux init schemes...
If you need your server operative, snapshots are the way to go, I'd say.
Arno
--Gary
-----Original Message-----
From: Arno Lehmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 12:13 PM
To: Gary Kopp
Cc: bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Single-user mode backups?
Hi.
Gary Kopp wrote:
Some Linux book I was reading suggested running generic (dump, tar,
whatever) DR backups in single-user mode to minimize open file issues.
Sure one way. The only problem is that in single-user mode you quite
often can't access your backup media. Network? External harddrive? NFS
mount?
Do Bacula users see that as a worthwhile approach, or should I spend
my
time thinking about more important things, like when will lunch be
ready?
If you find a way to allow single user mode to activate the network for
bacula-fd, go ahead... in my opinion, the safer and better way is to use
an emergency CD (or any other medium, could even be network boot...)
with full network access and the necessary drivers for all filesystems
to save. Then start the static bacula-FD in a chrooted environment.
Seems more universal to me than playing with single user mode (if
available at all) on all sorts of systems.
Arno
--Gary
--
IT-Service Lehmann [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de
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