Backup Restore Testing

[pcrock]

I'm testing the backup/restore policy we have (complete system image weekly and a daily backup of users mailboxes) for a new server. I'm using the backup script off the wiki which seems to work OK for taking the daily backups. The mailbox export part is a little slow, but I can live with that.

What I'd like to do is purposely corrupt a mailbox so I can do a test restore with something approaching a real world problem.

Can anyone let me know if there are any common problems that lead to this and how to do it so I test it properly.

Thanks in advance.

Phill

[kanderson]

Why not just delete the user?

I haven't looked at the script lately, but I know it used to use omcpoutu. If that's still the case, I'd recommend updating to sxmboxexp, as the sxmbox commands will preserve rules and such in addition to the email.

Kev.

[pcrock]

I've tested it with delete and it's fine, I'd like to try it against a possible real world problem so for example if the MD collars me first thing in the morning saying his emails broken and it has a corrupt mailbox, I can have some sort of practice on how to fix it from a backup. Deleting and restoring is just too easy, I want it hard

Phill

[kanderson]

That's hard to do, because scalix stores mail in a central location, and then each recipient is given a pointer to it. If you delete (or somehow corrupt) the pointer, you only impact a single message. If you screw up the message, it'll affect all of the recipients.

I suppose you could send a test message, and find out enough info about it to identify it uniquely in the message store, and then mess with it using a hex editor or similar, but I can't talk you through finding where in the message store a single message resides. I can find out for you if you'd like though.

But I suppose that also helps. Since you now understand better how mail is stored, you can also understand how a user's mailstore really never goes corrupt. Potentially a single message, but not one whole user.

Kev.

[dwalexuk]

Is it possible to restore separate messages / mailfolders in users mailbox rather than restoring complete users mailbox?

[kanderson]

Yes, that's very easy and documented in the man page for sxmboximp (and sxmboxexp to only archive a single message.)

Kev