Re: Backup of Cryus IMAP (restore?)

[Thomas Hannan]

So to backup Cyrus, I should do the following?:
ctl_mboxlist -d /var/backup/mydbbackupfile
cp -dPr /var/imap /var/backup/imap
cp -dPr /var/spool/imap /var/backup/spool/imap

Would it be better to tar them first, or just copy and then tar later?
And to do a full restore? How would I do so? (I assume I'd have to stop the
service to restore)...

Thank you
Thomas Hannan

 Michael Frank wrote:

  I have heard that if I backup the database and/or user files as they
  are being accessed I might corrupt the files. Is this true? If so
how
  can I implement an automated backup without taking the service
down? I
  need to have the service up 24/7 and am unable to take it down at
any
  point. Can anyone point me in the correct direction?


 Simply backing up the files as they are actively being used will not
 corrupt them.  However, it is possible that the file you backup is not
 usable since there is no synchronization between the updates to the
 database and the backup program.  The best practice discussed here for
 restoring inidividual folders is to create an empty folder, restore the
  message files themselves, and then reconstruct that folder, so there
 is  no problem there.  For a full restore, to guard against corrupting
 important database files I do ctl_mboxlist -d to a text file just
 before  the backup, and then backup that file.  If a full restore is
 required,  the database can be rebuilt from the text file if necessary.

 --
 John A. Tamplin   Unix System Administrator
 Emory University, School of Public Health +1 404/727-9931

Re: Backup of Cryus IMAP (restore?)

[John Alton Tamplin]

Thomas Hannan wrote:


So to backup Cyrus, I should do the following?:
ctl_mboxlist -d /var/backup/mydbbackupfile
cp -dPr /var/imap /var/backup/imap
cp -dPr /var/spool/imap /var/backup/spool/imap

Would it be better to tar them first, or just copy and then tar later?
And to do a full restore? How would I do so? (I assume I'd have to stop the
service to restore)...
 

I have a cron job that does ctl_mboxlist -d /var/imap/mailboxes.txt and 
then I just let our normal backup software (Veritas Netbackup 
DataCenter) backup that file as it would any other.  That way I have if 
the recovered mailboxes.db file was corrupt.

If you have the disk space to do your backup on disk, you are probably 
better doing snapshots (mirror the volume, then break the mirror) than cp.

--
John A. Tamplin   Unix System Administrator
Emory University, School of Public Health +1 404/727-9931