Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 11:34 +1100, James Harper wrote: I've still got a couple of minor issues with restoring a Windows system while using a BartPE CD: * Specifying the target for the restore. The system currently has the following partitions: Part 1 - 100G Primary partition defined as C: Part 2 - 400G Extended partition Part 3 - 400G Logical partition defined as E: Restoring C: works fine: I just specify the target as blank and the directory structure is correctly recovered into the C: disk. However, BartPE seems to be mounting what should be E: as D: with the CD mounted as E:. If I leave the target as blank, the files go to the C: disk. If I specify the target as D:, the files go to the D: drive, but under a \e directory. Once the restore is finished I can move the directory structure back up to the root, but it would be nice to have them go to the correct place to begin with and avoid the extra step. Create a junction called C:\bacula-restores\E to the actual D: drive, and direct bacula to restore to C:\bacula-restores. It should do the right thing from there. If the tools to do the junction mapping aren't in bartpe you should be able to add them without much fuss, although by the time you have restored C: they should be there, depending on what version of windows you have. I forgot that you can do that with Windows. That should work. I've about run out of cycles for backup/restore testing so I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to try it, but if I do I'll post the results. * Windows does not see the second partition. After restoring the system and rebooting, I have to go into Window's 'Disk Management' and assign a drive letter. I had assigned the letter when I created the partition, and and it was defined when I created the backup. Why did it get lost now? In a previous test I had backed up/restored only the C: drive without touching the partition table, and Windows lost the partition that time as well. Any ideas as to what is missing? I think windows assigns the letters using volume uuids. If you are restoring the system, especially to D:\E and then moving the files back to in \E back to \, and possibly even using a junction, then it may not restore the uuid correctly, and therefore windows will think it's a second disk. C:\ should work regardless because it can't really be anything else. One more detail: when I first booted BartPE with no partitions defined on the disk, the CD was mounted as E:. In the process of defining the partitions, I assigned the second partition as E: which then meant that none of the files/programs on the CD could be found. I had to power off and reboot, at which time BartPE mounted the second partition as D: instead of E: and kept the CD at E:. Could that be causing both of the problems? I'm not sure, but I would guess not. Is there an option in bartpe to assign the CD to an out of the way drive letter like Z:? it's been a while since I've used it. I didn't see anything, but I'll look when I get a chance. For us it isn't currently all that big a deal, and we may even be able to handle it through a change to the process: as the last step before rebooting, go back and assign that partition to E: again. BTW: the machine that I have been testing on is a clone of our Domain Controller / Exchange Server. With the exception of the minor glitches mentioned above, after the restore the system came up just fine and users were able to log in and get their at their email. I'm still not an expert with Windows (and I intend to keep it that way), but are there other potential issues with restoring Domain Controllers / Exchange Servers / other MS servers (other than data-loss between backup and crash) that I've missed? /dwight -- Dwight Tovey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work to Live : Live to Ride : Ride to Work - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
Onsdag 17 januar 2007 22:11 skrev Dwight Tovey: I've still got a couple of minor issues with restoring a Windows system while using a BartPE CD: * Specifying the target for the restore. The system currently has the following partitions: Part 1 - 100G Primary partition defined as C: Part 2 - 400G Extended partition Part 3 - 400G Logical partition defined as E: Restoring C: works fine: I just specify the target as blank and the directory structure is correctly recovered into the C: disk. However, BartPE seems to be mounting what should be E: as D: with the CD mounted as E:. If I leave the target as blank, the files go to the C: disk. If I specify the target as D:, the files go to the D: drive, but under a \e directory. Once the restore is finished I can move the directory structure back up to the root, but it would be nice to have them go to the correct place to begin with and avoid the extra step. * Windows does not see the second partition. After restoring the system and rebooting, I have to go into Window's 'Disk Management' and assign a drive letter. I had assigned the letter when I created the partition, and and it was defined when I created the backup. Why did it get lost now? Windows does its own drive letter assignments which it stores in its registry - with new partitions that is not signed it does its own thing upon boot - that's why sometimes when you restore images containing a windows installation with more than one partition, sometimes it cannot boot or more precisely it can boot but noone can login because it swaps the partitions, because it registers the partitions as new. Then you have to edit the registry with a tool or remotely. In a previous test I had backed up/restored only the C: drive without touching the partition table, and Windows lost the partition that time as well. Any ideas as to what is missing? What do you mean by windows lost the partition? Cheers Steen One more detail: when I first booted BartPE with no partitions defined on the disk, the CD was mounted as E:. In the process of defining the partitions, I assigned the second partition as E: which then meant that none of the files/programs on the CD could be found. I had to power off and reboot, at which time BartPE mounted the second partition as D: instead of E: and kept the CD at E:. Could that be causing both of the problems? Thanks in advance. /dwight - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On Jan 17, 2007, at 3:11 PM, Dwight Tovey wrote: I've still got a couple of minor issues with restoring a Windows system while using a BartPE CD: * Specifying the target for the restore. The system currently has the following partitions: Part 1 - 100G Primary partition defined as C: Part 2 - 400G Extended partition Part 3 - 400G Logical partition defined as E: Restoring C: works fine: I just specify the target as blank and the directory structure is correctly recovered into the C: disk. However, BartPE seems to be mounting what should be E: as D: with the CD mounted as E:. If I leave the target as blank, the files go to the C: disk. If I specify the target as D:, the files go to the D: drive, but under a \e directory. Once the restore is finished I can move the directory structure back up to the root, but it would be nice to have them go to the correct place to begin with and avoid the extra step. * Windows does not see the second partition. After restoring the system and rebooting, I have to go into Window's 'Disk Management' and assign a drive letter. I had assigned the letter when I created the partition, and and it was defined when I created the backup. Why did it get lost now? In a previous test I had backed up/restored only the C: drive without touching the partition table, and Windows lost the partition that time as well. Any ideas as to what is missing? One more detail: when I first booted BartPE with no partitions defined on the disk, the CD was mounted as E:. In the process of defining the partitions, I assigned the second partition as E: which then meant that none of the files/programs on the CD could be found. I had to power off and reboot, at which time BartPE mounted the second partition as D: instead of E: and kept the CD at E:. Could that be causing both of the problems? Clearly. I'm not quite sure how to build BartPE in such a manner that will force the optical drive (or additional drives) to a higher drive mapping, but that would be one fix if it's possible. The other option that came to mind would be to recover the C partition, boot the machine into Windows, finish creating the remaining partition(s) and restore the balance of the machine while in Windows. After all, we now have a nice wintel version of bacula we can use. We know the OS will complain bitterly as I suspect you're off loading things like SQL and Exchange onto the other partitions - but after a reboot, it should find all the things it's looking for and work after running Exchange and SQL specific utilities to bring those databases back into a consistent state. Erich Thanks in advance. /dwight -- Dwight Tovey [EMAIL PROTECTED] Work to Live : Live to Ride : Ride to Work -- --- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php? page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
The other option that came to mind would be to recover the C partition, boot the machine into Windows, finish creating the remaining partition(s) and restore the balance of the machine while in Windows. After all, we now have a nice wintel version of bacula we can use. If the machine is a domain controller then I believe Microsoft best practises would suggest putting some of the log files on a physically different set of disks. You would have to boot into active directory restore mode to fix this anyway so maybe it doesn't matter. We know the OS will complain bitterly as I suspect you're off loading things like SQL and Exchange onto the other partitions - but after a reboot, it should find all the things it's looking for and work after running Exchange and SQL specific utilities to bring those databases back into a consistent state. It should do. Even Backup Exec will not restore the exchange and SQL databases (except I think the actual backup exec database itself) as part of the disaster recovery restore. You have to restore the disk volumes and system state and then boot up and restore the databases. James - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On Jan 17, 2007, at 6:37 PM, James Harper wrote: The other option that came to mind would be to recover the C partition, boot the machine into Windows, finish creating the remaining partition(s) and restore the balance of the machine while in Windows. After all, we now have a nice wintel version of bacula we can use. If the machine is a domain controller then I believe Microsoft best practises would suggest putting some of the log files on a physically different set of disks. You would have to boot into active directory restore mode to fix this anyway so maybe it doesn't matter. We know the OS will complain bitterly as I suspect you're off loading things like SQL and Exchange onto the other partitions - but after a reboot, it should find all the things it's looking for and work after running Exchange and SQL specific utilities to bring those databases back into a consistent state. It should do. Even Backup Exec will not restore the exchange and SQL databases (except I think the actual backup exec database itself) as part of the disaster recovery restore. You have to restore the disk volumes and system state and then boot up and restore the databases. Ah yes, and one more reason to end the madness with Backup Exec and move completely over to Bacula. James - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
It should do. Even Backup Exec will not restore the exchange and SQL databases (except I think the actual backup exec database itself) as part of the disaster recovery restore. You have to restore the disk volumes and system state and then boot up and restore the databases. Ah yes, and one more reason to end the madness with Backup Exec and move completely over to Bacula. I use Backup Exec on a daily basis, and have found very few problems with it, especially in the event of a disaster. You can't do a 'proper' restore of a database without having Exchange/SQL actually running, and you won't get it running in a BartPE or Backup Exec IDR environment. Booting the operating system to complete the restore is going to be a given no matter what solution you are using, unless you are prepared to restore a database that you backed up using VSS, and that will set you back to the point at which the VSS backup was done (hours or days ago), not the time the last log shipment was done (hopefully minutes ago). Or maybe you were only kidding... email always makes it hard to tell :) James - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
No, not kidding. I agree, it is difficult to tell most of the time in email. I've been using Backup Exec for years. Once Symantec bought out Veritas, things have gone decidedly south with the product. A crying shame. Same thing happened when they acquired Powerquest's product line of disc utilities. But I digress. Yes, nothing short of imaging the disc will get really close (Exchange and SQL still have to be massaged) to a fast restore. Though I hear LiveState allows for a pretty painless recovery. I suspect it automates the things we would do manually. Here's looking forward to swapping more war stories down the road! Erich On Jan 17, 2007, at 7:36 PM, James Harper wrote: It should do. Even Backup Exec will not restore the exchange and SQL databases (except I think the actual backup exec database itself) as part of the disaster recovery restore. You have to restore the disk volumes and system state and then boot up and restore the databases. Ah yes, and one more reason to end the madness with Backup Exec and move completely over to Bacula. I use Backup Exec on a daily basis, and have found very few problems with it, especially in the event of a disaster. You can't do a 'proper' restore of a database without having Exchange/SQL actually running, and you won't get it running in a BartPE or Backup Exec IDR environment. Booting the operating system to complete the restore is going to be a given no matter what solution you are using, unless you are prepared to restore a database that you backed up using VSS, and that will set you back to the point at which the VSS backup was done (hours or days ago), not the time the last log shipment was done (hopefully minutes ago). Or maybe you were only kidding... email always makes it hard to tell :) James - Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.phpp=sourceforgeCID=DEVDEV ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
Hi, On 9/15/2006 9:38 PM, Jeff LaCoursiere wrote: Howdy, I am running bacula-dir version 1.38.11 (28 June 2006) on FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE. I am fairly new to Bacula, and have just configured two Unix machines and one Windows XP machine with bacula-fd. Backups have been running consistently for several weeks now without issue to a USB2.0 attached 400GB external drive. I am truly amazed to see what is now a 200GB single file on this disk, but all seems well. You quote a good reason to limit the volume file size yourself :-) Yesterday I had to blow away the disk on the Windows box temporarily, and thought this would be a perfect time to test the restore. I had temporarily installed FreeBSD on this disk to perform a few tasks, and now wanted my windows box back. First I installed XP again. I haven't investigated the use of the bare metal recovery tools, but decided I might get around the problem of open files and registry by removing the drive, attaching it to a USB2.0/IDE interface, and mounting the disk on another windows box. I installed the bacula-fs client on this machine and let it pretend to be the old box on its old IP. Then I started the restore. Now I have a few questions. :-) 1) The disk is now mounted as E:\ on the windows box. When the default recovery options popped up, I changed the restore destination to E:/. Sadly, instead of writing from root, it created a C directory in E:\, and started the restore in there. Can this be overridden in some way? I don't think so, though I think there is some sort of a feature request regarding a functionality to allow this - basically stripping leading path components during a restore. That should also prove useful when restoring snapshots - you backup from /snapshot/usr, for example, and restore to /usr... or you backup from C:/ and restore to E:/ like in your case. 2) The relevant backup jobs were close to the middle of the 200GB file on my backup volume, and it took literally three hours to seek to the right place before it started the restore. Surely this isn't right. Can't it jump right to the correct block in this file and start restoring? No, due to some reasons Bacula does not do this. AFAIK this is documented in the manual somewhere, might be somewhere where it discusses the means to limit the volume size. Sorry if these questions are not unique. I searched the bacula site for a wiki or some kind of search of the users mailing list, but came up empty. Hm. Sourceforge itself had some (not very good) search functions last time I looked, and then there is gmane.org I could easily have missed it, and if someone would point me to any kind of forum that I could search for my own answers that would be greatly appreciated. No forums, and that's good IMO... I promise to read: http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Disast_Recove_Using_Bacula.html For windows, I'd recommend using a BartPE based recovery strategy. Arno before attempting this again! I just want to get my windows box back :( Cheers! Jeff LaCoursiere Network Consultant Southland Gaming Virgin Islands [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users -- IT-Service Lehmann[EMAIL PROTECTED] Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On 15 Sep 2006 at 22:22, Arno Lehmann wrote: Hi, On 9/15/2006 9:38 PM, Jeff LaCoursiere wrote: Howdy, I am running bacula-dir version 1.38.11 (28 June 2006) on FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE. I am fairly new to Bacula, and have just configured two Unix machines and one Windows XP machine with bacula-fd. Backups have been running consistently for several weeks now without issue to a USB2.0 attached 400GB external drive. I am truly amazed to see what is now a 200GB single file on this disk, but all seems well. You quote a good reason to limit the volume file size yourself :-) Large volumes on *disk* slow down the restore if you're trying to get one file back. GREATLY. Try it. I suggest smaller volumes. e.g. 2GB. Consider you need a 30MB from somewhere in that 200GB file. Assume it's 1/4 of the way through the volume. You must read 50GB before you get to that file. Of course, it could be at 170GB through the file... Either way, you don't want to wait all that time. Tape drives often have skip ahead functionality so this problem is not always applicable to tape. -- Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, Dan Langille wrote: Large volumes on *disk* slow down the restore if you're trying to get one file back. GREATLY. Try it. I suggest smaller volumes. e.g. 2GB. Yup, not only have I tried it, but it was question 1) in my original post. It doesn't make any sense, really. Files on disk can be lseek()'ed directly to the appropriate block, and the catalog really should contain the block within the volume to seek to. It should be instant. I am a bit confused as to why it is not. Consider you need a 30MB from somewhere in that 200GB file. Assume it's 1/4 of the way through the volume. You must read 50GB before you get to that file. Of course, it could be at 170GB through the file... Either way, you don't want to wait all that time. Tape drives often have skip ahead functionality so this problem is not always applicable to tape. The equivalent skip-ahead for disk files is the lseek() system call... All that aside, it does make me queasy to have such large files on disk. All I need is for the filesystem to have an fsck problem and suddenly a months worth of backups are removed :) So I am looking into smaller volume sizes. Ideally I would have a different file volume written each night to the same disk with some kind of auto-labelling. Does anyone else do this? Then each file would just contain the backups run for that day. If the auto-labelling could include date information in the filename that would be even better still, as once the files in these volumes expire from the catalog I could come back later and know which volume I really want. I have also been planning to archive the volumes onto actual tape for eternal safekeeping... Am I approaching this the right way? I keep running across the comment that if you try to use bacula and force backups to particular volumes you will be unhappy. The bright idea to dump tape and use detachable USB hard drives instead seems to be biting me in the ***. j - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
Re: [Bacula-users] Windows restore issues
On Friday 15 September 2006 23:20, Jeff LaCoursiere wrote: On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, Dan Langille wrote: Large volumes on *disk* slow down the restore if you're trying to get one file back. GREATLY. Try it. I suggest smaller volumes. e.g. 2GB. Yup, not only have I tried it, but it was question 1) in my original post. It doesn't make any sense, really. Files on disk can be lseek()'ed directly to the appropriate block, and the catalog really should contain the block within the volume to seek to. It should be instant. I am a bit confused as to why it is not. As the archives will attest several times, I have tried to make it work but there is always some regression that fails. I gave up trying to make it work. If someone wants to send me a patch that makes it work, I'll treat them to a really nice dinner. Consider you need a 30MB from somewhere in that 200GB file. Assume it's 1/4 of the way through the volume. You must read 50GB before you get to that file. Of course, it could be at 170GB through the file... Either way, you don't want to wait all that time. Tape drives often have skip ahead functionality so this problem is not always applicable to tape. The equivalent skip-ahead for disk files is the lseek() system call... All that aside, it does make me queasy to have such large files on disk. All I need is for the filesystem to have an fsck problem and suddenly a months worth of backups are removed :) So I am looking into smaller volume sizes. Ideally I would have a different file volume written each night to the same disk with some kind of auto-labelling. Does anyone else do this? Then each file would just contain the backups run for that day. If the auto-labelling could include date information in the filename that would be even better still, as once the files in these volumes expire from the catalog I could come back later and know which volume I really want. A good starting point would be: http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html I have also been planning to archive the volumes onto actual tape for eternal safekeeping... Am I approaching this the right way? I keep running across the comment that if you try to use bacula and force backups to particular volumes you will be unhappy. This is very true, but it doesn't mean that you cannot use pools and limit the size of the Volumes or the number of backups a Volume contains. The bright idea to dump tape and use detachable USB hard drives instead seems to be biting me in the ***. Bacula's prior to 1.39.x don't deal very well with File storage that may not be mounted (i.e. USB). j - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnkkid=120709bid=263057dat=121642 ___ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
