Deploying Suse Linux Enterprise Server

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Deploying BackupPC on SLES

Configuring BackupPC for Archiving Clients

BackupPC is very good at providing "on-site" backups, but what if you want to take these backups "off-site" in case of fire or other emergency. Well, BackupPC gives you the option of creating a "Archive" of any backup on any host stored on the server.

To enable this feature you must first add "Host" to the BackupPC Server. This host is not a real host, but a "Virtual Host" that you will access through the Web Interface to create archives of a backup. The first thing you will want to do is create the file /etc/BackupPC/pc/archive.pl containing:

$Conf{XferMethod} = 'archive';

Then you will want to add the "archive" host to the /etc/BackupPC/hosts file (use the web interface if you want). Finally you must manually create the directory /srv/backuppc/pc/archive and ensure that the backuppc user is the owner and has write access:

mkdir /srv/backuppc/pc/archive
chown backuppc:www /srv/backuppc/pc/archive
chmod o-rwx /srv/backuppc/pc/archive

Once you do all of the above steps, go ahead and reload the BackupPC Server Configuration (you can use the Web Interface to do this, it is under "Admin Options".

Starting an Archive through the Web Interface and Specifying Options for the Archive

Once you reread the configuration, you can now start an archive by browsing to the "archvie" host. This screen allows you to start an archive for any backups you have on the server. When starting an archive you are presented with a few different options:

Archive Location/Device - here you enter a directory where you want the archive to be stored at, it will be a directory location on the server and can be a removable drive or network location mounted somewhere on the server - don't use my example or "/srv/backuppc", create a directory called "/srv/backuppc/archive" if needed. Just remember that this directory must have enough storage space to hold a complete backup.

Compression - select the compression type that you want to use (or none you don't want compression - although it will be stored as a raw tar file).

Split output into - This allows you to control the size of the archive file size to allow it to fit onto certain media. What BackupPC will do is split the compressed image into files with the specified size. The first filename will be host.0.tar.gz.aa then it will be host.0.tar.gz.ab and so on.

Once the archive is done, move the files to removable media or a removeable drive to get them off of the premesis.

Restoring from an Archive

If you happen to be unfortunate enough to need to restore from an Archive created with BackupPC, here is how to get your files back. First, but all of the archvie files into a single directory (this means you may have to copy them back from a CD), then issue the following command to restore all of the files to a directory:

mkdir restore
cd restore
cat ../host.0.tar.gz.* | tar zx

All of your files should now be restored into the "restore" directory and you can manipulate or move them however you want.

Purchase "Deploying Suse Linux Enterprise Server"
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