On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:08:40 -0500 (EST), Bill Arlofski wrote: >> Hi. >> >> Is anyone backing up Zimbra on-the-fly? I don't think taking server >> offline for pure file-based copy is a modern method of doing things. >> Neither do I want to use zmbackup, because as I understand, that >> dumps >> all the mailboxes (which are on disk anyway) to separate files which >> would just waste so much space. > > Hi Silver... The "Network Edition" (eg: commercial/pay-for) version > of Zimbra supports internal full and incremental backups that it does > on-the-fly and automatically once configured. > > At our client sites, we use Bacula to backup the automatic Zimbra > backups directory structure. > > It's a pretty reliable method of backing up Zimbra, and I have > unfortunately had the experience of having to fully test process this > when a client's Zimbra server lost 4 drives in a 6-drive RAID5 array > at the same time. :( > > The good new though is that we were able to rebuild the Zimbra server > (virtual this time), install the Zimbra software, restore Zimbra's > automatic full and inc backups from our Bacula backup, and then > re-import all Zimbra accounts/emails/calendars etc > > I think with the non-commercial "Community Edition" (assuming that is > what you are using) you are best off running an live rsync of the > /opt/zimbra directory structure, then shutdown Zimbra services > (zmcontrol stop), run an offline rsync of the /opt/zimbra directory > structure to the same place, restart Zimbra services (zmcontrol > start, > THEN run a Bacula backup of the rsync'ed directory. > > On smaller sites using the non-commercial edition of Zimbra, we do > those steps in a RunBefore script for the Zimbra job. > > Does this cost you a few minutes of Zimbra downtime each night? > Yes, but only a few at most while the offline rsync runs. > > But if you are running the non-commercial version the benefit of this > method is in your cost savings - IMHO. > > Hope this helps.
Thanks for the tips. I'm running the Network Edition, so I do have the backup possibility, but I'd prefer using Bacula, especially because I want to do backups to a remote server. Zimbra's backup scripts are meant storing backups locally, right? Also the backups take more-or-less the amount of space the data is. As for the rsync-method, the downside of this is that it needs the same amount of disk-space for backup as for the data itself. This is what I meant by "non-modern" in the initial e-mail. Anyway, would it suffice to make MySQL-dump, LDAP-dump and just backup the whole /opt/zimbra with Bacula from an LVM-snapshot or smth? -- Silver ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
