Re: how to backup a cyrus server?

[Nik Conwell]

On Dec 4, 2006, at 6:42 PM, Andrew Morgan wrote:


On Mon, 4 Dec 2006, Rafael Mahecha wrote:


[...]
I used to use tivoli to backup the old server (which was ok since  
no data bases were involved)... but since cyrus has databases and  
such, I am concern about file-locking and database corruption.


What is the best way to back up the server? shutdown cyrus for a  
while, then snap shot it, and then back up to tivoli or should  
I just be able to back up the running server directly to tivoli?


what other software can I use to backup?


Check out the Cyrus Wiki page at:

  http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

Most people just make a regular backup of the filesystem using  
whatever tools they normally use.  The only trick is to export  
your mailboxes.db to a flat text file in order to back it up (which  
you should be doing periodically anyways).

[...]

We're using TSM for backups.  The Wiki notes using LVM snapshots so  
we ended up doing that.  We have a pre-backup script that does the  
ctl_mboxlist -d for a text mailboxes file, ctl_cyrusdb -c to  
checkpoint, a sync, and then a lvcreate --snapshot --size 10G --name  
lv_cyrus_snapshot /dev/vg_cyrus/lv_cyrus.  We then mount the snapshot  
and back it up normally with TSM.  Haven't had a lot of restore  
experience but testing worked out OK.



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Re: how to backup a cyrus server?

[Nik Conwell]

I chose that number based on scientific total lack of clue.  Also,  
that was the nearest round number of space left over in the cyrus VG  
(~68G).  I take it I overestimated a little :)



On Dec 5, 2006, at 9:02 AM, Guus Leeuw jr. wrote:

I am just wondering why in the world you are using 10G for your  
snapshot?

This is 10G worth of snapshot bitmap + changes to the source while the
snapshot is active. Hence you either have a *large* source, or a very
*active* mail system...?

Just my $0.02,
Guus


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:info-cyrus-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nik Conwell
Sent: 05 December 2006 12:05
To: Cyrus User's Mailing List
Subject: Re: how to backup a cyrus server?

ctl_mboxlist -d for a text mailboxes file, ctl_cyrusdb -c to
checkpoint, a sync, and then a lvcreate --snapshot --size 10G --name
lv_cyrus_snapshot /dev/vg_cyrus/lv_cyrus.  We then mount the snapshot



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FW: how to backup a cyrus server?

[Guus Leeuw jr.]

 -Original Message-
 From: Guus Leeuw jr. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: 05 December 2006 15:03
 To: 'Nik Conwell'; 'Cyrus User's Mailing List'
 Subject: RE: how to backup a cyrus server?
 
 Normally, LVM builds a bitmap indicating which raw blocks it has to copy.
 If the bit is down, it reads the block from the source, if the bit is
 down,
 It reads the block from its own buffer area stored in the snapshot. The
 copy-before-write technique guarantees validity of both the snap and the
 source.
 
 Now, depending on the implementation, LVM either takes a bit per physical
 extend, or per disk block. For sake of calculations, a per disk block
 guess is better... ;)
 
 So 10G source equals 10485760K source. Divide by 4 (normal disk block ==
 4K) equals 2621440K. Divide by 8 (every source block needs 1 bit) equals
 327680. 327680K equals 320M.
 Now this won't allow the source to be changed, so pop it up to the next
 round number, say 1G, and that's all you need.
 
 Why this more accurate snapshot-sizing? This way you don't have to make
 sure your vg always has 10GB available! You can snap with far less than
 that! In your situation you can probably still snap all the while the vg
 is used for about 62GB...
 
 I normally use chunks of 200M for my snapshots in an doubling fashion;
 that is, if the lvcreate --snapshot -L${size}M fails, I use 400M, then
 800M, etc.
 
 Just to let you know,
 Guus
 
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:info-cyrus-
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nik Conwell
  Sent: 05 December 2006 14:17
  To: Cyrus User's Mailing List
  Subject: Re: how to backup a cyrus server?
 
  I chose that number based on scientific total lack of clue.  Also,
  that was the nearest round number of space left over in the cyrus VG
  (~68G).  I take it I overestimated a little :)
 
 
  On Dec 5, 2006, at 9:02 AM, Guus Leeuw jr. wrote:
 
   I am just wondering why in the world you are using 10G for your
   snapshot?
   This is 10G worth of snapshot bitmap + changes to the source while the
   snapshot is active. Hence you either have a *large* source, or a very
   *active* mail system...?
  
   Just my $0.02,
   Guus
  
   -Original Message-
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:info-cyrus-
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nik Conwell
   Sent: 05 December 2006 12:05
   To: Cyrus User's Mailing List
   Subject: Re: how to backup a cyrus server?
  
   ctl_mboxlist -d for a text mailboxes file, ctl_cyrusdb -c to
   checkpoint, a sync, and then a lvcreate --snapshot --size 10G --name
   lv_cyrus_snapshot /dev/vg_cyrus/lv_cyrus.  We then mount the snapshot
 
 --
 No virus found in this outgoing message.
 Checked by AVG.
 Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.7/569 - Release Date: 05/12/2006
 03:00
 

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.7/569 - Release Date: 05/12/2006
03:00
 


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how to backup a cyrus server?

[Rafael Mahecha]

I recently moved all my users from proprietary wemail (using local sendmail) to 
latest cyrus and sendmail using lmtp.

I used to use tivoli to backup the old server (which was ok since no data bases 
were involved)... but since cyrus has databases and such, I am concern about 
file-locking and database corruption.

What is the best way to back up the server? shutdown cyrus for a while, then 
snap shot it, and then back up to tivoli or should I just be able to back 
up the running server directly to tivoli?

what other software can I use to backup?

Thanks
:
Rafael Mahecha

Email / Systems Administrator
JSU OIM - Web Services
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jsums.edu
:
Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
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List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html

Re: how to backup a cyrus server?

[Andrew Morgan]

On Mon, 4 Dec 2006, Rafael Mahecha wrote:

I recently moved all my users from proprietary wemail (using local 
sendmail) to latest cyrus and sendmail using lmtp.


I used to use tivoli to backup the old server (which was ok since no 
data bases were involved)... but since cyrus has databases and such, I 
am concern about file-locking and database corruption.


What is the best way to back up the server? shutdown cyrus for a while, 
then snap shot it, and then back up to tivoli or should I just be 
able to back up the running server directly to tivoli?


what other software can I use to backup?


Check out the Cyrus Wiki page at:

  http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

Most people just make a regular backup of the filesystem using whatever 
tools they normally use.  The only trick is to export your mailboxes.db 
to a flat text file in order to back it up (which you should be doing 
periodically anyways).


It is probably not worth the downtime to actually shutdown Cyrus in order 
to get a consistent backup of the entire mail spool.  So what if a few 
files change while the backup is happening?  Unless you have really 
unreliable hardware, you'll create more downtime doing the backups than 
you'll ever prevent by having a consistent backup.  :)


Andy

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List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html

RE: how to backup a cyrus server?

[Robert T. Covell]

I have found a link to a process that might be helpful:

http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

 

Aside from this, we have done it the old fashion way: tar  zip on a
live system late at night.  We just had a major server failure on
10/25/2006 which we were able to recover from.

 

Since this worked we most likely will go with this (Knock on wood), but
the above is a bit more streamlined (rsync).

 

-Bob

 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rafael
Mahecha
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 4:50 PM
To: info-cyrus@lists.andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: how to backup a cyrus server?

 

I recently moved all my users from proprietary wemail (using local
sendmail) to latest cyrus and sendmail using lmtp.

 

I used to use tivoli to backup the old server (which was ok since no
data bases were involved)... but since cyrus has databases and such, I
am concern about file-locking and database corruption.

 

What is the best way to back up the server? shutdown cyrus for a while,
then snap shot it, and then back up to tivoli or should I just be
able to back up the running server directly to tivoli?

 

what other software can I use to backup?

 

Thanks

:
Rafael Mahecha

 

Email / Systems Administrator
JSU OIM - Web Services
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.jsums.edu
:


Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/
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List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html

RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Simon Matter]

 I don't completely agree here, there are ways to do snapshots without
 any
 downtime for example in a SAN environment or using filesystem or LVM
 based
 snapshot methods. However, it does not mean your snapshots are really
 consistent from the aplications point of view.

 And that's the big question: How inconsistent can things be without
 shutting down
 cyrus?

I think nobody can really tell you. There are several possible
inconsistencies which depend on how you are doing snapshots or backups and
what filesystem you are using. However, exactly the same inconsistencies
will show up when your box crashes (kernel panic, power failure) and
properly configured systems should survive this without loosing much. Of
course, one has to make sure that the obvious is properly configured like
for example disabling raid/disk write caches with no battery backup or
making sure that the OS/filesystem really writes data out to the disk when
the application thinks it has been written. It's not always an easy task
and you will usually loose some performance by disabling those dangerous
tuning things.

Simon


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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Simon Matter]

 On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 17:48 +0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Thank you Vittorio for your script, but you are stopping the cyrus and
 I think it's very problematic in production environment.

 I think the point is that, short of using some of the replication stuff
 from pre-2.3 in CVS, there's no proper way of doing a hot backup.  All
 of the snapshotting techniques (whether filesystem snapshots, rsync or
 otherwise) require a little bit of downtime to complete, but are
 employed *specifically* to minimize downtime.

I don't completely agree here, there are ways to do snapshots without any
downtime for example in a SAN environment or using filesystem or LVM based
snapshot methods. However, it does not mean your snapshots are really
consistent from the aplications point of view.

Simon


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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[lkolchin]

Hello All,
Thanks for all responses.

After reading your posts on the issue and reading some more stuff, I'll make a 
summary below:

1) I'll make a dump of all mailboxes to the text file:

su - cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  /var/lib/imap/mailboxlist.txt

And I can restore it with:

su - cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -u  /var/lib/imap/mailboxlist.txt

2) I will make a regular backups (in my case with DSM client) of 
/var/spool/imap/ and /var/lib/imap/, without stopping cyrus, in this case I 
endanger myself in some data inconsistency and maybe some e-mails lost (which 
were in process while backup was running).
Please correct me on the above if there are some other dangers I'm not aware 
of???

3) In case of disaster I can just copy mail directly from the backup to the 
mail store directory (/var/spool/imap/user/%username%), 
And run:
/usr/lib/cyrus/bin/reconstruct -rf user/username


4) All quotas (in /var/lib/imap/quota/%firstletter of username%/)will not be 
reconstructed, so I'll need to do it manually.

5) All subscription and seen info (in /var/lib/imap/user/%firstletter of 
username%/) will not be reconstructed, but I could restore it from the regular 
backup.

Please read my summary and tell me if the things right?
Should I be aware of other things I didn't mentioned here and what scripts to 
implement for this case?


Best Regards,
Leon Kolchinsky






-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wil Cooley
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:03 AM
To: info-cyrus@lists.andrew.cmu.edu
Subject: RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 17:48 +0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Thank you Vittorio for your script, but you are stopping the cyrus and 
 I think it's very problematic in production environment.

I think the point is that, short of using some of the replication stuff from 
pre-2.3 in CVS, there's no proper way of doing a hot backup.  All of the 
snapshotting techniques (whether filesystem snapshots, rsync or
otherwise) require a little bit of downtime to complete, but are employed 
*specifically* to minimize downtime.

Wil
--
Wil Cooley [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Naked Ape Consulting, Ltd. http://nakedape.cc

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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[John Madden]

 I don't completely agree here, there are ways to do snapshots without any
 downtime for example in a SAN environment or using filesystem or LVM based
 snapshot methods. However, it does not mean your snapshots are really
 consistent from the aplications point of view.

And that's the big question: How inconsistent can things be without shutting 
down
cyrus?

John






-- 
John Madden
UNIX Systems Engineer
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Andrew Morgan]

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, John Madden wrote:


I don't completely agree here, there are ways to do snapshots without any
downtime for example in a SAN environment or using filesystem or LVM based
snapshot methods. However, it does not mean your snapshots are really
consistent from the aplications point of view.


And that's the big question: How inconsistent can things be without 
shutting down cyrus?


How consistent does it need to be?

We dump the mailboxes.db to a flat file at midnight, then start a regular 
filesystem backup of the system.  In the event of a complete system 
failure or disaster recovery, our plan is to restore everything from the 
latest backup then (most likely) rebuild the mailboxes.db from the flat 
file.  Our mail store is on a SAN, so it seems unlikely that we'll ever 
reach this point unless the building falls down.


The more common case is individual mailbox restores.  I do a fair amount 
of mailbox restores at the request of users that have accidently deleted a 
message.  I simply create a new subfolder in the user's INBOX named 
RESTORE and recover all the message files and the cyrus.header file into 
it.  Then I run reconstruct and quota on the mailbox to fix things up. 
This has always worked without fail for me.


Andy



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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[lkolchin]

Hello 
again.

Is it 
really no one on the list can suggest me some backup/restore howto for Cyrus 
mailboxes?
I 
believe that there are someguys on the list who can 
help.

So 
please be so nice to answer me.

Best 
Regards,
Leon 
Kolchinsky


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 12:44 
PMTo: info-cyrus@lists.andrew.cmu.eduSubject: Tutorial on 
how to backup/restore cyrus

Hello 
All,

Could you please 
point me to some good tutorial/manual on how to backup and restore Cyrus DB and 
mailboxes.

Best 
Regards,
Leon 
Kolchinsky

Cyrus Home Page: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus
Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyruswiki.andrew.cmu.edu
List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html

RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Didi Rieder]

--On Monday, September 19, 2005 02:00:14 PM +0300 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
wrote:



Is it really no one on the list can suggest me some backup/restore howto
for Cyrus mailboxes?
I believe that there are some guys on the list who can help.

So please be so nice to answer me.


As a start you could look at:
http://acs-wiki.andrew.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

Didi

--
-
Didi Rieder
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGPKey ID: 3431D0B0
-

pgpjCZ3c4MKiU.pgp
Description: PGP signature

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Re: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Vittorio Muth]

Hi Leon,

There is (one of many) way(s) how you can perfom a backup:

This script is only for the mailboxes (/var/spool/mail/imap in my case) 
and the files in /var/imap (for example: mailboxes.db)


script
#/bin/bash

#first do an unstable copy  (just to reduce the downtime of cyrus later)

tmplog=/root/backupdir/tmpimaplog

echo start backup of imap...  $tmplog 21

echo rsync of /var/imap  $tmplog 21
	rsync -a --delete /var/imap /raid/mail_backup/tmpstore/varimap/ \	 
$tmplog 21


echo rsync of /raid/mail/imap  $tmplog 21
rsync -a --delete /var/spool/mail/imap \
/raid/mail_backup/tmpstore/varspoolimap/  $tmplog 21


#now we do an rsync to stabilize the backup

#shut down cyrus
echo stopping cyrus  $tmplog 21
/usr/local/bin/cyrus stop  $tmplog 21


#sync with rsync to get a 'stable' backup

#
rsync -a --delete /var/imap /raid/mail_backup/tmpstore/varimap/  
$tmplog 21


rsync -a --delete /var/spool/mail/imap \ 
/raid/mail_backup/tmpstore/varspoolimap/  $tmplog 21


#start cyrus
echo starting cyrus...  $tmplog 21
/usr/local/bin/cyrus start  $tmplog 21



#finally we move the whole temporary backup of the disk onto a tape:
#(requires an own script)

#do the rest... (like a normal backup, but with the archived paths in 
imap.list


echo starting rest of backup...  $tmplog 21

/root/backupdir/backup_imap

echo ...done.  $tmplog 21

# clean the temporary directory
rm -Rf /raid/mail_backup/tmpstore/*

/script


I hope you can use it... If you have questions just feel free to ask.

best regards,

Vittorio




[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Hello All,
 
Could you please point me to some good tutorial/manual on how to backup 
and restore Cyrus DB and mailboxes.
 
Best Regards,

Leon Kolchinsky





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--


Muth Vittorio . System Administration
Hyperwave RD GmbH . Albrechtgasse 9 . A-8010 Graz

t: +43.316.820.918.607  f: +43.316.820.918.99
m: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  w: http://www.hyperwave.com



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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[lst_hoe01]

Zitat von [EMAIL PROTECTED]:


Hello again.

Is it really no one on the list can suggest me some backup/restore 
howto for Cyrus mailboxes?

I believe that there are some guys on the list who can help.

So please be so nice to answer me.


As a starting point have a look at
http://acs-wiki.andrew.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

Regards

Andreas


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Re: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[Klaus P. Pieper]

Hi Leon,

[EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb:


A) So if anyone have some scripts with the snapshot feature who can share them, 
it would be nice to see them here.
B) Also any scripts with the minimal downtime for the cyrus are welcomed.
C) Any snapshot techniques (on reiserfs) are also very interesting and I like 
to here them.
 

in early June, there were several messages on this list with the subject 
backup without stopping the imap server? I haven't read them all but 
perhaps you find somethinb usefil in these mails.


Klaus


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RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

I currently use kolab which uses cyrus/postfix/ldap.

They have a pretty good overview on their wiki in maintence section.

Http://wiki.kolab.org

I'd start there... And post specific questions to the list.


-kevin


-Original Message-

From:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subj:  RE: Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus
Date:  Mon 2005 Sep 19 4:00 am
Size:  1K
To:  [EMAIL PROTECTED], info-cyrus@lists.andrew.cmu.edu

 Hello  again.
 
 Is it  really no one on the list can suggest me some backup/restore howto for 
Cyrus  mailboxes?
 I  believe that there are someguys on the list who can  help.
 
 So  please be so nice to answer me.
 
 Best  Regards,
 Leon  Kolchinsky

   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of  [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]
Sent: Sund --- message truncated ---



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Tutorial on how to backup/restore cyrus

[lkolchin]

Hello 
All,

Could you please 
point me to some good tutorial/manual on how to backup and restore Cyrus DB and 
mailboxes.

Best 
Regards,
Leon 
Kolchinsky

Cyrus Home Page: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus
Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyruswiki.andrew.cmu.edu
List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html

RE: Backup of Cyrus

[asiani]

Yes i have it too ! but how can i have a backup of the all mailbox
automatically done ?

thks
alain

-Message d'origine-
De : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] la part de Simon Matter
Envoyé : vendredi 12 décembre 2003 17:50
À : Doug Koobs
Cc : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Objet : Re: Backup of Cyrus


 I've been doing some reading of the list archives, and have learned that
 my
 current backup process is not sufficient. I'm hoping to get some feedback
 on
 my new proposed process. I only have about 20 users, total mail store is
 under 300 MB. I can stop the services. I want to be able to recover from
 total disaster, and from user errors. For now, I will do a full backup
 nightly

 I'm using RH9 and Simon Matter's RPMs. Here are the beginnings of a script
 that I hope to use:

My rpms already do mailbox backups daily and rotate them through a week.
Have a look at /var/lib/imap/backup/ where you find mboxlist.gz,
mboxlist.1.gz...

Simon


 ###
 postfix stop  # Stop MTA
 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd stop  # Stop Cyrus
 su cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  mailboxes-`date '+%m%d%y'` # List
 mailboxes;
 file makes restore easier???

 #Backup the following directories (I  haven't decided on which tool yet):
 #/var/spool/imap
 #/var/lib/imap

 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd start # Start Cyrus
 postfix start #Start MTA
 

 Will this be sufficient? Thanks,

 Doug





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RE: Backup of Cyrus

[asiani]

If someone have a solution to have a backup of cyrus...please post it on the
list 
I have the same problem, how can i backup without stopping the mail
server...

alain

-Message d'origine-
De : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] la part de Craig Ringer
Envoye : vendredi 12 decembre 2003 18:01
A : Doug Koobs
Cc : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Objet : Re: Backup of Cyrus


Doug Koobs wrote:
 I've been doing some reading of the list archives, and have learned that
my
 current backup process is not sufficient. I'm hoping to get some feedback
on
 my new proposed process. I only have about 20 users, total mail store is
 under 300 MB. I can stop the services. I want to be able to recover from
 total disaster, and from user errors. For now, I will do a full backup
 nightly

 I'm using RH9 and Simon Matter's RPMs. Here are the beginnings of a script
 that I hope to use:

 ###
 postfix stop  # Stop MTA
 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd stop  # Stop Cyrus
 su cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  mailboxes-`date '+%m%d%y'` # List
mailboxes;
 #file makes restore easier???

It's not quite as critical as I originally thought (as the ACL
information _is_ stored somewhere else as well), but it can make
recovery from db corruption easier, and can make restoring to a
different machine a _lot_ less fuss. That said, I think Simon Matter's
RPM builds take care of making these backups for you anyway. According
to a recent post by Simon it makes backups in /var/lib/imap/backups - so
verify that they're there and look right, and you should be fine.

 #Backup the following directories (I  haven't decided on which tool yet):
 #/var/spool/imap
 #/var/lib/imap
 
 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd start # Start Cyrus
 postfix start #Start MTA
 

 Will this be sufficient? Thanks,

It's pretty similar to what I do. Though I use snapshots instead of
stopping the daemons, I'd /prefer/ to be able to just stop the daemons.
Unfortunately, my mail spools are growing - fast - and I have users who
keep weird hours (not least myself). At last check the gzipped backup
files were 3gb, from mail spools of 4.6GB. This would mean too much
downtime if I stopped the daemons, especially since I'm doing network
backups to (slow) tape.

IMHO the best way to make sure your backups are OK is to restore them.
Preferably to a test machine ;-) - ideally the one you'd be restoring to
if there was a hardware failure right now (and maybe another, different,
one as well). Alas, you're proabably in a situation like me - what cold
spare?!? - where this isn't possible. I did my restore testing on a
hapless debian 3.0 box - and this is why I'm so paranoid about
converting the mailboxes.db . Everything else about the restore went
perfectly, but it couldn't use the mailboxes.db because of a different
berkley db version. I'm very glad I learned that then, and not after a
server failure.

Craig Ringer

RE: Backup of Cyrus

[lst_hoe01]

Zitat von [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 If someone have a solution to have a backup of cyrus...please post it on the
 list 
 I have the same problem, how can i backup without stopping the mail
 server...
 
 alain

http://asg.web.cmu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Cyrus/Backup

Re: Backup of Cyrus

[Ken Murchison]

Doug Koobs wrote:

I've been doing some reading of the list archives, and have learned that my
current backup process is not sufficient. I'm hoping to get some feedback on
my new proposed process. I only have about 20 users, total mail store is
under 300 MB. I can stop the services. I want to be able to recover from
total disaster, and from user errors. For now, I will do a full backup
nightly
I'm using RH9 and Simon Matter's RPMs. Here are the beginnings of a script
that I hope to use:
###
postfix stop# Stop MTA
etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd stop# Stop Cyrus
su cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  mailboxes-`date '+%m%d%y'` # List mailboxes;
file makes restore easier???
#Backup the following directories (I  haven't decided on which tool yet):
#/var/spool/imap
#/var/lib/imap
etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd start   # Start Cyrus
postfix start   #Start MTA

Will this be sufficient? Thanks,
If you're using sieve, you'll also want to backup sievedir, unless you 
have it nested under configdir like I do.

--
Kenneth Murchison Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer 21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26  Orchard Park, NY 14127
--PGP Public Key--http://www.oceana.com/~ken/ksm.pgp

Re: Backup of Cyrus

[Simon Matter]

 I've been doing some reading of the list archives, and have learned that
 my
 current backup process is not sufficient. I'm hoping to get some feedback
 on
 my new proposed process. I only have about 20 users, total mail store is
 under 300 MB. I can stop the services. I want to be able to recover from
 total disaster, and from user errors. For now, I will do a full backup
 nightly

 I'm using RH9 and Simon Matter's RPMs. Here are the beginnings of a script
 that I hope to use:

My rpms already do mailbox backups daily and rotate them through a week.
Have a look at /var/lib/imap/backup/ where you find mboxlist.gz,
mboxlist.1.gz...

Simon


 ###
 postfix stop  # Stop MTA
 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd stop  # Stop Cyrus
 su cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  mailboxes-`date '+%m%d%y'` # List
 mailboxes;
 file makes restore easier???

 #Backup the following directories (I  haven't decided on which tool yet):
 #/var/spool/imap
 #/var/lib/imap

 etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd start # Start Cyrus
 postfix start #Start MTA
 

 Will this be sufficient? Thanks,

 Doug





 Confidential: This electronic message and all contents contain information
 from
 Financial Credit Services which may be privileged, confidential or
 otherwise protected
 from disclosure. The information is intended to be for the addressee only.
 If you are
 not the addressee, any disclosure, copy, distribution or use of the
 contents of this
 message is prohibited. If you have received this electronic message in
 error, please
 notify the sender and destroy the original message and all copies.

Re: Backup of Cyrus

[Craig Ringer]

Doug Koobs wrote:
I've been doing some reading of the list archives, and have learned that my
current backup process is not sufficient. I'm hoping to get some feedback on
my new proposed process. I only have about 20 users, total mail store is
under 300 MB. I can stop the services. I want to be able to recover from
total disaster, and from user errors. For now, I will do a full backup
nightly
I'm using RH9 and Simon Matter's RPMs. Here are the beginnings of a script
that I hope to use:
###
postfix stop# Stop MTA
etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd stop# Stop Cyrus
su cyrus -c ctl_mboxlist -d  mailboxes-`date '+%m%d%y'` # List mailboxes;
#file makes restore easier???
It's not quite as critical as I originally thought (as the ACL 
information _is_ stored somewhere else as well), but it can make 
recovery from db corruption easier, and can make restoring to a 
different machine a _lot_ less fuss. That said, I think Simon Matter's 
RPM builds take care of making these backups for you anyway. According 
to a recent post by Simon it makes backups in /var/lib/imap/backups - so 
verify that they're there and look right, and you should be fine.

#Backup the following directories (I  haven't decided on which tool yet):
#/var/spool/imap
#/var/lib/imap

etc/rc.d/init.d/cyrus-imapd start   # Start Cyrus
postfix start   #Start MTA

Will this be sufficient? Thanks,
It's pretty similar to what I do. Though I use snapshots instead of 
stopping the daemons, I'd /prefer/ to be able to just stop the daemons. 
Unfortunately, my mail spools are growing - fast - and I have users who 
keep weird hours (not least myself). At last check the gzipped backup 
files were 3gb, from mail spools of 4.6GB. This would mean too much 
downtime if I stopped the daemons, especially since I'm doing network 
backups to (slow) tape.

IMHO the best way to make sure your backups are OK is to restore them. 
Preferably to a test machine ;-) - ideally the one you'd be restoring to 
if there was a hardware failure right now (and maybe another, different, 
one as well). Alas, you're proabably in a situation like me - what cold 
spare?!? - where this isn't possible. I did my restore testing on a 
hapless debian 3.0 box - and this is why I'm so paranoid about 
converting the mailboxes.db . Everything else about the restore went 
perfectly, but it couldn't use the mailboxes.db because of a different 
berkley db version. I'm very glad I learned that then, and not after a 
server failure.

Craig Ringer