SXBACK error

[jillrae]

Am getting the following error after running the sxback script. Am running this on SLES9 with Scalix 10.
What does " snapshot: Required device-mapper target(s) not detected in your kernel
lvcreate: Create a logical volume" mean? That this script doen't run on SLES ot that the LV needs to be created? Maybe I need some parameters added to the script? It looks like the script is not creating the LV for the backup snapshot to be copied to. Also, once the LV is made and the backup is written to it, where in the directory do I findit? Is it located at /mnt/sxbackup?
I am running this from the command line to understand how things work and where things are created. I wanted to see and make sure informtion is getting written somewhere so my tpae can back it up once it is put in a CRON job.
I do understand that when ./sxbackup -end is run the LV is unmounted and the written data is destroyed.

Right now I do a complete shutdown and tar the mailboxes. I wanted to automate the process and keep the shutdown time to a minumun.

Thanks.



Wed Jan 24 11:59:15 EST 2007
Taking snapshot & Mounting Scalix Data Volume
Suspending Writes to Scalix
Creating the Logical Volume /dev/vgscalix/lvscalix
snapshot: Required device-mapper target(s) not detected in your kernel
lvcreate: Create a logical volume

lvcreate
[-A|--autobackup {y|n}]
[--addtag Tag]
[--alloc AllocationPolicy]
[-C|--contiguous {y|n}]
[-d|--debug]
[-h|-?|--help]
[-i|--stripes Stripes [-I|--stripesize StripeSize]]
{-l|--extents LogicalExtentsNumber |
-L|--size LogicalVolumeSize[kKmMgGtT]}
[-M|--persistent {y|n}] [--major major] [--minor minor]
[-m|--mirrors Mirrors]
[-n|--name LogicalVolumeName]
[-p|--permission {r|rw}]
[-r|--readahead ReadAheadSectors]
[-R|--regionsize MirrorLogRegionSize]
[-t|--test]
[--type VolumeType]
[-v|--verbose]
[-Z|--zero {y|n}]
[--version]
VolumeGroupName [PhysicalVolumePath...]

lvcreate -s|--snapshot
[-c|--chunksize]
[-A|--autobackup {y|n}]
[--addtag Tag]
[--alloc AllocationPolicy]
[-C|--contiguous {y|n}]
[-d|--debug]
[-h|-?|--help]
[-i|--stripes Stripes [-I|--stripesize StripeSize]]
{-l|--extents LogicalExtentsNumber |
-L|--size LogicalVolumeSize[kKmMgGtT]}
[-M|--persistent {y|n}] [--major major] [--minor minor]
[-n|--name LogicalVolumeName]
[-p|--permission {r|rw}]
[-r|--readahead ReadAheadSectors]
[-t|--test]
[-v|--verbose]
[--version]
OriginalLogicalVolume[Path] [PhysicalVolumePath...]


Enable Writes to Scalix
Mount /dev/vgscalix/sxbackup to the Mount Point /mnt/sxbackup
mount: special device /dev/vgscalix/sxbackup does not exist

.....................................................
Wed Jan 24 12:00:06 EST 2007
Umounting Scalix Backup Volume
umount: /mnt/sxbackup: not mounted
Removing the snapshot logical volume
One or more specified logical volume(s) not found.

[ls-al]

can you please check if the package "device-mapper" is installed?

[jillrae]

Yes, ijust checked and device-mapper is installed.

Thanks for the quick response.

J

[dkelly]

Check to see if you have a module called dm-snapshot installed. Use the command lsmod

Cheers

Dave

[ls-al]

Dave was quicker as usual.
This is the error you get if dm-snapshot is not loaded.
A

Code: Select all

modprobe dm-snapshot

will help, but I was looking for the cause why it isnt loaded.

[jillrae]

It comes back with "no such file". SHould I be in any particular directory when I search or is the root home directory OK? I also used the modprobe dm-snapshot command as well. It returned nothing but returned to the prompt.
J

[ls-al]

modprobe will return nothing, but a lsmod (lower case LSMOD) should show you that dm-snapshot is loaded.
After that you should try the script again.

[jillrae]

OK. Ran lsmod. It listed dm-snapshot this time. So ran the script again. This is what I got emailed to my admin account after I thyped in./sxbackup -end

Wed Jan 24 14:06:16 EST 2007
Taking snapshot & Mounting Scalix Data Volume
Suspending Writes to Scalix
Creating the Logical Volume /dev/vgscalix/lvscalix
Logical volume "sxbackup" created
Enable Writes to Scalix
Mount /dev/vgscalix/sxbackup to the Mount Point /mnt/sxbackup

.....................................................
Wed Jan 24 14:07:17 EST 2007
Umounting Scalix Backup Volume
Removing the snapshot logical volume
Logical volume "sxbackup" successfully removed


To my un-trained eye it looks like it ran Ok this time. The only thing is, before I unmounted the LV I navigated to /mnt/sxbackup and the folder was empty. Is this correct?

So if I understnad this right, I do the following:

1. run ./sxbackup -begin
2. let my backup software do a backup of the /mnt/sxbackup logical volume (Actually I do a complete backup of everything)
3. run ./sxbackup -end to unmount the volume

Then I should be able to take that tape and do a tape backup software re-store to my warm-boot scalix server on a 2nd machine. (I should re-store the /mnt/sxbackup LV on the tape to the var/opt/scalix/users directory on the warm-boot machine.) I should then have an identical Scalix server up to the point of the last backup. Right?

Thanks

[ls-al]

At the time you have mount /mnt/sxbackup to the snapshot a "df -k" should show (nearly) identical value as for /var/opt/scalix mountpoint. If not you have to review the settings and look into /var/log/messages for errors.
The steps 1-3 are correct so far.
sxbackup has the capability to rsync to the warm-standby machine (see the pdf). With this its not necessary to restore from tape in a case of emergency. I would suggest to adjust the rsync command in the script to preserve hard-links (-oavzH instead of -oavz).

Please keep in mind that with Scalix 10 there are some more or less static directories (/etc/opt/scalix, /opt/scalix-tomcat, /opt/scalix/global) that have to be transferred to the standby-server too. It depends on how you installed the standby-server.

If you think of bringing the standby-system online it should have the same hostname. Setting this up is not a problem, just use a different IP-Address.

Hope this helps

[jillrae]

I ran the ./sxbackup script last night and did my tape backup. It worked!!! YEA!!!!

I am now studying how to set up dsync. If I have 2 scalix servers, one the primary and one the warm boot server, and both have the same FQDN of hostname.domainname.extersion, but different IP addresses. How do they know not to email information to itself when doing the rsync process?

Also the 2 documents I found in the How Tos wereAdding A Scalix Server and Diagnosing Dirsync. Were these the .pdf files you referred to?

jillrae

[ls-al]

Hi,
good to hear that it works.

You dont need to implement the DIRSYNC feature just for the warm standy. If you synchronise your Scalix messagestore with rsync from sxbackup you should already have all you need.

DIRSYNC is a enterprise-only feature and provides SYNChronisation for DIRectories. You need this with you are running several productive Scalix-servers in your organisation and want to provide a central address-book of all Scalix users and groups.

The PDF I pointed to was sxbackup.pdf from the sxbackup.tgz.

cheers,
Dirk