Hardware failure on Server

[Devilmarkus]

Hello CPC-World,
this morning we had a complete hardware failure on our server.
So, Nurgle, Gryzor and me installed a full backup...

The forum should be complete!
Wiki, too!

The website http://people.cpcwiki.eu was completely damaged and so I had to re-install it from scratch...
Sad is: Every user accounts was killed!

Good is: The network website has a lot of new features.
(Online emulators will follow when I have the time to code the plugins)

So, I hope, you were not completely irritated about the non-reachable domain.
Everything should work fine now.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

[arnoldemu]

Hello CPC-World,
this morning we had a complete hardware failure on our server.
So, Nurgle, Gryzor and me installed a full backup...

Nice work.

To be honest you did it so well I didn't notice it was down!

It took 10hours you say? OMG.

[Gryzor]

It took so long because of the thousands of small files that were to be uploaded... add the overhead to organize the thing, plus the time until we realized what was happening (I was actually *in* the server when it went down!)... and there you are.

[Bryce]

(I was actually *in* the server when it went down!)

And you just had to find out what happens when you press the big red button, didn't you!? Well you won't do that again
I hope

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Let me take this opportunity to thank Nurgle for all his really great work and help - in general, and not in this issue specifically. He doesn't get enough credit for all his aid...

Anyhow, following this crash, I was thinking about how to automate the backup procedure. I know of www.site-vault.com , which I have used and probably will buy, and it allows full files backup but also incremental back ups and SQL (incremental) back-ups. So, I'd like to ask if anyone knows of a better solution?

Cheers
Gryzor

PS There goes the Flags modification... will try again
PS2 @Bryce: of course when the systems started failing (it happened in phases, first ftp, then DNS settings got all weird, then control panel, then the site itself) I was all "what the F*CK did I do? I *DIDN'T* tell it to do that!!!!!"

[Devilmarkus]

And here we see Gryzor *in* the Server:

[Gryzor]

...actually, at that specific moment, I had less hair than that. But oh well.

Btw, was just checking the subsystems... will you reinstall the file-sharing service? I'm asking because I found a system that incorporates itself to the forum for file sharing and gallery facilities... (oh, also, once I had asked you which program it was... what was it after all? ).

[Devilmarkus]

(oh, also, once I had asked you which program it was... what was it after all? ).

Let's talk in MSN about that...

[Gryzor]

If i get back home at a normal time... got dinner with a German guy this afternoon

[Octoate]

Anyhow, following this crash, I was thinking about how to automate the backup procedure. I know of www.site-vault.com , which I have used and probably will buy, and it allows full files backup but also incremental back ups and SQL (incremental) back-ups. So, I'd like to ask if anyone knows of a better solution?

What about a small wget script which is regularly activated by a cronjob? Nothing special, that's how we did it always in my old company. This would also allow incremental backups...
Because I host my own mailsystem at home (the server is 24/7 running), I do the same on my Linux box for my own website .

[arnoldemu]

http://lolcat.com/pcservereatindata.html

[nurgle]

What about a small wget script which is regularly activated by a cronjob? Nothing special, that's how we did it always in my old company. This would also allow incremental backups...
Because I host my own mailsystem at home (the server is 24/7 running), I do the same on my Linux box for my own website .

This is actually the current solution. Backups are done automatically every night.

[nurgle]

Oh, and by the way, we can't forget to mention MySQLDumper. This is an extremely useful tools to backup large MySQL databases on normal webspace accounts without shell access. MySQLDumper does the nightly backup of the Databases each night at 3:00 and at 3:10 my root server fetches the complete server contents incrementally via FTP, including the database dumps.

Watch the MySQLDumper demo video and be impressed.

http://www.mysqldumper.net/

[Apollo]

I was multiple times looking for the update news on the front page about the state of the reinstall 
You all did a great work reinstalling the backups and I am DAMN GLAD you did backups after all!! That is sadly not normal for a LOT of people! 

MySQLDumper is a real nice made tool!
I just use linux root-servers so I was never in need for something like that (rsync rulez!) but it is good to know in the case a friend of mine needs something like that!

[nurgle]

I was multiple times looking for the update news on the front page about the state of the reinstall 

At least someone took notice. The comments on the progress page where our little attempt to have some fun in the process. 

You all did a great work reinstalling the backups and I am DAMN GLAD you did backups after all!! That is sadly not normal for a LOT of people! 

Thanks. I am also DAMN GLAD. We have seen "things" happen to the wiki before, and we have seen other sites disappear completely (i.e. CPC Zone). I know that Gryzor and Markus invest a lot of time to keep the Wiki running, hence my little attempt to help in one small area, that usually nobody notices.

I hope the admins of the CPC-Wiki and community around it can prevent any disasters in the future, keeping the content online and accessible. The backup concept seems to be one measure that worked out pretty well. I just did not expect that we would need it so soon.

MySQLDumper is a real nice made tool!
I just use linux root-servers so I was never in need for something like that (rsync rulez!) but it is good to know in the case a friend of mine needs something like that!

If you do rsync style backup you really do want to check out BackupPC. It's one of the coolest OpenSource projects I encountered during the last years. BackupPC does rsync backup with a twist. On the BackupPC host, all files are put in a pool and deduplication is applied by making hardlinks from each backup run to the pool files. This way you can keep a very long history of backups and backups of many many machines running the same OS (lots of equal files -> only kept once). Plus the webinterface is really nice. Setup is not totally trivial, but really really worthwhile.

http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

Backup and recovery was one of my responsibilities in my last job. That's the reason I did it for the CPC-Wiki too. It's actually easy when you have done it before. 

[Gryzor]

Thanks for your suggestions mates!!!!

I forgot to mention, of course, that I'm running windows (my linux system is not always on), so it had to be a win solution...

But, also, I needed something better than either a file backup or an sql dump (in that regards, that solution that was mentioned before is simply fantastic!). I would need something to get it all, automatically, and also do incremental backups so we can revert experimentations or simply things go wrong...

Seems the one I proposed is the only one? Even if not free, it's still quite good... will try it and let you know.

[arnoldemu]

Thanks for your suggestions mates!!!!

I forgot to mention, of course, that I'm running windows (my linux system is not always on), so it had to be a win solution...

But, also, I needed something better than either a file backup or an sql dump (in that regards, that solution that was mentioned before is simply fantastic!). I would need something to get it all, automatically, and also do incremental backups so we can revert experimentations or simply things go wrong...

Seems the one I proposed is the only one? Even if not free, it's still quite good... will try it and let you know.

Question: Are the forum and wiki mods backed up?

[Devilmarkus]

Question: Are the forum and wiki mods backed up?

Answer: yes
We take daily backups.

[nurgle]

Answer: yes
We take daily backups.

And again: Offsite! Different hosting provider, different admin (me).