Backups & Restores
What IS Backed Up?
Lots of stuff. Generally speaking these categories include: all home, WWW, course, project, database and locally hosted mail directories; all "unsupported" (/uns) areas; all directories critical to the operation of file servers, e.g. root and system directories.
The CS Lab backs up explicitly what's shown in the lists in What Exactly is Backed Up?. The list of directories being backed up routinely changes.
What IS NOT Backed Up?
Lots of stuff.
NEARLY ALL DESKTOP SYSTEMS ARE NOT BACKED UP (regardless of OS)
Some filesystems or directories are specifically excluded:
- The filesystems listed in Filesystems Explicitly NOT Backed Up
- The directories identified with the exd (exclude directory) option in UNIX Filesystems and Directories.
- Any UNIX directory named "nobackup"
- For filesystems that are replicated (home and mail directories - see UNIX Disk Partitions and Directories), additional directories used by certain apps like Thunderbird and Firefox either to cache files or as a way station to oblivion are excluded, viz. "ImapMail", "Cache", and "Trash".
File Restoration Requests
To request restoration of a missing or corrupted file, contact support. Include in your message the last date (and even the time of day) that the file is likely to have been last changed or written.
Backup Policy
Files are backed up from primary disk volumes to backup volumes (tape or disk) for almost all CSE Lab file servers, as well as for a number of other computers. The primary purpose of backups is to allow recovery from loss of primary volumes. Recovery procedures are oriented mainly toward restoring all data on a volume, but specific files or directories may also be recovered.
Backups are not perfect. Backup volumes infrequently become unreadable for a variety of reasons. We aim to mitigate some of these problems by duplicating certain tapes and storing the duplicates off-site, and by taking care that almost all UNIX backup volumes and their corresponding primary volumes are situated in different buildings. For example, all backups of Linux file servers in the Allen Center are made on disk or tape volumes in Sieg Hall.
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