Centos 6 Backup and recovery

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SheWasLVL18

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Hi all

I have always been lurking these forums and never really had the inclination to join up and be part of the discussion. Now I humbly ask for some advice from the Linux gurus out there. I'm sure I would probably be able to get the answers I need by turning to my religion, googlism, but I think it's high time I engage you lot and join the MyBB community in ernest.

Right then, to the issue. This week I started a new job as a systems administrator for a company with 4 branches spread throughout KZN. Now I am familiar and comfortable with most of the systems and software that the company uses and I have already started to implement my own procedures.

The one thing I can't get my head around and that I don't want to fiddle with is the POS/Stock system that they use. It is a software called Unisolv and each individual branch runs it's own Centos 6 server with the database. Clients log into the server using Netterm. Some off windows based machines and some off thinclients. They have a company that does the software support and configuration changes for them so that's not an issue. The thing that I want to be sure of is that the data is being backed up and that in the event of corruption or disaster I can restore the data to at least the previous day.

Has anybody been exposed to a similar setup or can anyone give me some pointers? Any input will be much appreciated.

Thanks guys
 
I moved all our Centos installs to VMs to enable easier backups. I use the Proxmox VE virtualisation platform which runs live daily backups to external drive and then I run monthly tape backups. This ended up being the best solution to enable super quick restores.

If you have catastrophic failure, just pop Proxmox on a new box, grab the backup file and restore and you're up and running again.

Don't know if this is an option for you but I'm putting it out there.
 
Fantastic thanks guys, I will look into both options. It seems that using Rsynch is the most widely punted solution. I like the idea of running the servers on VM, what specs would a machine have to be to cope with this and would the fact that there will be 30 odd telnet sessions affect anything?
 
Haven't run telnet into a VM so can't comment but are you aware that Netterm from InterSoft is no longer supported (think they went under), not a problem for the free 32bit version but the 64bit version requires a key which they no longer sell. If you already have a key you purchased in the past it seems you can use it on multiple systems though.
 
We have the key so that's not an issue. It might cause some hassles in the future though. What are the alternatives to Netterm that you have found suitable?
 
+1 for Virtualisation and ease of backup/restore.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is backup of the database data. If your database is in use rsync isn't going to give you a consistent backup of the database. You probably want to setup a nightly dump to a folder you can rsync.

If you want a shrink wrapped rsync backup solution you can take a look at backuppc.
 
You say each location runs its own database. What database software are they using? Depending on the software, simply doing a flat file backup of a live system (a-la rsync) may leave you with inconsistent data.
 
morkhans said:
+1 for Virtualisation and ease of backup/restore.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is backup of the database data. If your database is in use rsync isn't going to give you a consistent backup of the database. You probably want to setup a nightly dump to a folder you can rsync.

If you want a shrink wrapped rsync backup solution you can take a look at backuppc.
Click to expand...

Yep, agree.

Rsync is great but for me it's not a great one-stop backup solution. Depending on the use case of course, for plain file backups it awesome but full system backups it's easier just having backed up VM images.
 
Contact the software guys to discuss backup solutions with them, they can give you the low-down on what you need to backup as a minimum for disaster recovery re: the stock program etc.

I don't necessarily think virtualization in this case will be the best choice here. Perhaps if the branch had more than 1 server, then yes. But for 1 server? Bit of an overkill
 
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