BackupWhat

Backup What Page Overview

• Backup What page allows users to specify the combination of a Host and Directories on it that need to be backed up periodically.
• ZMC refers to the combination of Host and Directory combination as a Disk List Entry (DLE).
• An Enterprise typically has a number of servers running different operating systems.
  • ZMC is quite capable of running on a single server and backing up the whole or portion of the Enterprise Computing machines.

• Box 1 Main Buttons.
  • The four main buttons of the page, "New Edit Duplicate Delete" are shown in the left hand side enclosed in Box 1.
• Box 1A Check Boxes.
  • New button works without ticking any check box.
  • Tick check boxes in Box 1A for Edit, Duplicate and Delete buttons to work.
• Box 2A. Host Name.
  • When a user is making the first Backup Set, there will be no data displayed.
  • When a user is working with an existing Backup Set, its existing data will be displayed.
  • Host Name (i.e. Client Host that the user is Backing up) will be displayed in Box.2A.

Warning: Host Names and Directory names are case sensitive.
For the Backup to happen, the Host name must correspond to a DNS entry that the Backup Set will look up on the ZMC server.
The Directory name must correspond to a directory on the particular host. 
The Directory path must be absolute one and not a relative path.
Otherwise, it will not be backed up.

TIP: 
Use fully qualified host name while entering the name of the local host as a client.
If not ZMC will give a warning at the time of running the Verify Client check.

• Box 2B. Directory.
  • The Directory on the Host previously specified that is to be backed up is entered in Box. 2B.
  • All directories/files below the directory specified are automatically included in the backup.

 TIP:
 When Tape is the Backup Media, carefully consider using multiple top level Directory 
 entries for the same host.
 Multiple top level Directory entries may result in lower restore time, 
 if a user is  seeking to restore individual files within those Directories.

• Box 3. Exclude.
  • Files to be excluded from the Backup are specified in Box. 3.
  • If users want to exclude more than one file, enter a regular expression or enter the path to a file that contains the full list of files to be excluded.
• Box 4.Encryption and Compression
  • These two choices can be made in Box 4.

New Edit Duplicate Delete

• New Edit Duplicate Delete Buttons:

• New and Edit Buttons
  • New or Edit buttons clicks take users to a different page where a user can enter or edit the information.
  • This is discussed in detail a little later under 'New or Edit Buttons' section.
• Duplicate Button
  • On clicking the Duplicate Button, for each check box that has been ticked, a Duplicate entry is added to the list with expression _copy added to the host name.
  • This does not create a Duplicate Backup Set.
  • It merely creates a duplicate DLE that needs editing.

• • De-select the original entry and select the Duplicate entry for editing. Please see Edit Button section on how to rename the Duplicate Disk List Entry.

 TIP:
 Duplicate is useful if a user  has named the Hosts in patterns like ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 etc.
 It is also useful to specify different exclude files and Encryption/ Compression options on the same host.

• Delete Button
  • Select the entry to be deleted by ticking it.
  • Click the Delete Button.
  • The ticked entry is silently deleted on the click of Delete Button.
  • There are no warnings and no way to undo the delete.

• • A user needs to create a fresh entry to undo the wrong delete.

Host and Directory Names

• • Host Names are made up from Alphanumeric characters.
    • They can also include either one of the two special characters, the period '.' or the dash '-'.
    • These special characters need to be included in between the usual Alphanumeric characters.
    • When Duplicate Button is clicked, the duplicate Host Name has the string '_copy' attached to it.
    • This name is illegal and a user is expected to edit it to a legal name.
    • There can be multiple Disk List Entries with the same Host Name.
    • However the combination of Host Name and Directory must be unique.
  • Directories Names have to follow the naming conventions of the host.
    • All sub-directories and their content will be backed up when a directory is specified.

Tip:
Having Multiple Host cum Directory combinations with different exclude list and 
Encryption and Compression options optimizes Backup and Recovery.

Exclude Files

• 4. Exclude Files

• Exclude file is an important component in optimizing the performance of the Backup set.
• ZMC uses GNU-tar utility which supports exclude lists.
• If a user specifies a Host name and the root directory, ZMC will backup everything on that server.
• It will uniformly Encrypt or Compress the data on that host.
  • ZMC allows a user to specify only one wild card expression or the path to an exclude file per Disk List Entry.

Some simple examples: 
Exclude any file or directory that ends in ".log" e.g.  ppp.log, XFree86.0.log *.log
Exclude any file or directory with the string "log" e.g.  logfile, maillog, syslog,
ppp.log,XFree86.0.log *log*
Exclude any file or directory that starts with string "cron" and ends in ".gz" 
e.g. cron.1.gz, cron.2.gz, log/cron.1.gz *cron*.gz
The question mark can be used to specify a single character. e.g. log.1, log.2, log.?

• • The exclude list file should reside on the client-host to which it refers. Hence the path to the exclude list must be in reference to it.
  • The exclude list file can be named anything that pleases a user and can be created with any text editor.
  • It should have only one exclusion entry per line.
  • Advantages of exclude files option.
    • There are two different uses of exclude file option.
      • Firstly, a user wants the excluded data not be part of any Backup Set.
      • Such data tends to be quite small in quantity and does not save much.
    • Secondly, the exclude list operates to exclude the data from Compression or Encryption options.
    • A user saves on precious CPU cycles, network traffic, and size of backup window.
  • If the data on the host is organized in such a manner that implementing multiple top level directories in different disk lists makes no sense, exclude lists may allow a user to organize the backup with possibility of faster restore for some files.

Encryption and Compression

• 5. Encryption and Compression Choice

• • Under the page entered with New or Edit Button, users will be able to set/edit if they want Encryption and Compression to the Host/Directory combination.
  • User's choice will be displayed on the BackupWhat page.
• Compress files.
  • ZMC compresses the data on the Client.
  • This results in lesser bandwidth being consumed while the Backup image is being transferred to the Backup server.
  • ZMC supports compression using gzip and the data can be uncompressed almost universally.
  • Many Tape drives have built-in hardware compression.
  • There are many advantages in allowing that hardware to handle the compression task.

 TIP:
 Anticipate difficulties of uncompressing backed up data when a device that uses 
 proprietary compression algorithm fails. 
 A user  may also face difficulties when that device is no longer in use/usable.
 For images and other pre-compressed files,do not waste Backup time
 trying to uselessly compress them.

• Encrypt files
  • Usually backed up data is not guarded with as much care as live data is.
  • Encrypting such data adds a layer of protection against misuse.
  • ZMC encrypts the data on the server.
  • It uses amcryptsimple encryption.
  • Encryption passphrases are stored in amandabackup user directory on the server.

New or Edit Buttons

• • New Button
    • Users do not have to select anything before clicking the New Button.
    • Users are to enter all the details of a Disk List Entry on the page that opens on clicking the New Button.

• • • The details users are expected to enter are:
      • 1.Host Name
      • 2.Directory Name
      • 3.Exclude Files
      • 4.Encryption Yes/No
      • 5.Compression Yes/No
    • Host Name:Enter the name of an existing host on the Network.
    • Please note that other than Alphanumerical characters [Aa-Zz][0-9], A user can use only the period “.” and the dash “-” as middle part of the name.
    • Users will be warned of an invalid name when the Add Button is clicked.
    • Till users click the Add Button, they can go back to any box and alter its entry.
    • Clicking the Clear Button will delete all unsaved details in one go.
    • Users can enter more than one Disk List Entry details on the page.
    • Just click the Add Button after each entry.
    • It will be added to the list at the bottom of the page.
    • Click Done Button to save and go back to the Backup What page.

• • Edit Button
    • Users have to select the Disk List Entry that they want to edit before clicking the Edit Button.
    • On the Edit page that opens, the existing entry is displayed at the bottom.

• • • The same contents, ready for editing are also displayed above.
    • The Illustration shows that the host name has been edited, with '_copy' string at the end of its name, deleted.
    • It also shows that the Directory has been changed from /temp to /etc.
    • Exclude file name is being entered.
    • Click Update Button to end the editing.
    • Users will be taken back to the previous page, where the edited entry will be shown in its original place.

Move to ... Option

• • To continue the process of setting up a Backup Set, please move on to Backup Where option.
  • If users are editing only the Backup What part of an existing Backup Set, please move on to Verify option.