Unix/Linux backups & restores

About

We provide nightly network backups for supported hosts running Facilities-supported Unix/Linux operating systems, including:

Fedora Core 3,5
Fedora 7
Redhat Linux 9.0
Solaris 7,9

The backup system used on the above platforms is Teradactyl.

Important notes

Unix/Linux hosts are not automatically placed in the backup system; backups must be specifically requested. See the section below on how to tell if a host is being backed up if you are uncertain if your host is receiving backups.
If you add a disk to a host, or change or rename the partitioning, you must tell us in order for the new disk or partition to receive backups. To request backups, send mail to help@cs.cmu.edu with the name and CMU asset number of the host.
In order to receive backups, we must be able to install the backup software on your host and it must be running the Facilities environment.

What is backed up

As mentioned above, hosts and new partitions are not automatically put in the backup system.
We can back up partitions up to around 50 GB (the old backup system only handled partitions up to 2 GB).
Only directories of the form /usrN, where N is some number, are usually backed up. Directories in other places, such as /home are not backed up by default. We also back up the contents of /usr/BACKUP and do not back up /etc/srvtab (since backup traffic is not encrypted).
Files/directories whose names match */.netscape/cache/* or */vmware/* are not backed up.
If you have a dual-boot machine, only the OS that is running at the time the backup system is operating will get backed up. Unix backups usually run from around 4:00 PM until 10:00 AM. Your machine will be backed up during some random time during that period (it cannot be individually scheduled).
Files in the directory /etc/not-backed-up are not backed up.

Special requirements

Because we do network backups of hundreds of Unix/Linux hosts nightly, backups for machines with special backup requirements need to be handled on a case-by-base basis. If you need backups for a host that has partitions larger than 50 GB, has a large amount of data that changes frequently, or has a very large amount of data on it (such as a large RAID array), please contact help@cs.cmu.edu to discuss backup options.

How to tell if a Unix host/Linux is being backed up

You can run /usr/local/bin/bustatus to tell whether or not a host is being backed up with the new backup system.

How to request a restore

To request a restore on a Unix/Linux system, send mail to help@cs.cmu.edu with the following information:

Name of the machine the file(s) were located on.
The full path to the requested file(s). Please make sure that these are the actual paths of the file(s) and not a symlink to them.
The last known dates during which the file(s) existed.

E-mail containing instructions on how to access restored files will be sent to you after the restore is complete.