single-user incremental backup/restore

[simrid]

Hiya all,

For backups at the moment we are rsyncing /var/opt/scalix for the main backup but we are also using the ombackup script (submitted on this mailing list) to extract users mailbox data once a day.

The ombackup script uses omcpoutu to extract each users mailbox into a single file. This data can be used to recovered mail for a single user without disrupting the server.

The issue we are having is that omcpoutu extracts the data into a single file, which gets backed up everytime it changes. Some users mailboxes are quite large e.g. 800M. and because the extracted mailbox is only a single file then even if the user receives a single mail during the day then that single file is marked as modified and so the whole thing is backed up again.

Is there anyway of :
1) extracting user mailbox data in some sort of exploded format so that we can do incremental backups?
and/or
2) Some tool to reconstruct a users mailbox from data in the/var/opt/scalix/users directories?

Cheers
Sim

[mdarby]

anyone?

I have a guy who deleted about 300 contacts and he's not too happy about it...

[florian]

I will not comment on the main topic, but give you advanced info that particularly this use case, the recovery of deleted items, will become a lot easier in Scalix 11 through our Recovery Folder feature for SBE and EE.

Cheers,
Florian

[mdarby]

It seems very odd that somewhat advanced restore features haven't been implemented before version eleven of a product...

[florian]

don't quote me wrong, please!

This is not a new restore feature - in fact it's more the concept of a hierarchical wastebasket where the admin can control on a per-user basis how long deleted items are still kept around on the server for restore-less recovery.

What you're asking for can be done on the basis of Single User restore. Have you checked the Knowledgebase article on ISDB, ISS and Single User Restore? This is pretty low-level stuff, however - the export/import tools that you are using for backup have additional functionality for Scalix 11 as well.

Cheers,
Florian.

[mdarby]

I will checkup on what you've listed. Thanks!