ebrind

Q: Manually Backup MacOS X 10.7 Lion Server PostgreSQL DB

Hello,

 

I am sure most of you are aware that Time Machine does NOT properly backup your Wiki's and your users Calendars and Contact information. I am even more appalled that this is still even an issue in 10.7.5. I wonder if management over at Apple is aware that it's Tech Support Employees are telling customers to NOT trust Time Machine backups and use a 3rd party backup for your server when states on Apple's website and I quote "OS X Server also takes advantage of Time Machine to back up your server data — including shared files, calendars, mail, wikis, and more — to another hard drive, so you can easily restore to an earlier configuration". Somthing needs to be done about this!

 

From what I can tell the problem is this (Can anyone confirm?):

 

1. Time Machine fails to update and or create dumpall.psql.gz in the Library/Server/PostgreSQL/Backup/ directory

 

2. Time Machine is denied access to the dumpall.psql file during the restore process and restores the dumpall.psql.gz file.

 

This end result is either a blank database or database from last date Time Machine was able to create or modify the dumpall.psql.gz file.

 

 

How can you manually backup and restore your PostgreSQL database so you do not loose your Wiki's, Wiki files or users contacts and calendars?

 

Thanks,

 

ebrind

Posted on Mar 7, 2013 7:43 AM

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Q: Manually Backup MacOS X 10.7 Lion Server PostgreSQL DB

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  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 7, 2013 7:55 AM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 7, 2013 7:55 AM in response to ebrind

    Here is a screen shot of what I am talking about.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 9.50.30 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 9.51.05 AM.png

     

    See the time stamp and file size on the zip file. My database is 235MB and if I were to restore my server right now all my users calendars, contacts and wiki's would be restored back to 2/24/12.

     

    Thanks,

     

    ebrind

  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 7, 2013 6:30 PM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 7, 2013 6:30 PM in response to ebrind

    Here is another server running 10.7.5 with the same problem. See the time stamp on the files. The dump file is fine but the dumpall.psql.gz is from 4/25/12.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.24.36 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.24.55 PM.png

  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 7, 2013 6:45 PM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 7, 2013 6:45 PM in response to ebrind

    And another server running 10.7.5.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.42.20 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.42.44 PM.png

  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 7, 2013 7:01 PM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 7, 2013 7:01 PM in response to ebrind

    Here is a server I actually did a time machine restore on and lost my Wiki's as well as users contacts and calendars. I had other backups of this information so I did not loose anything. All my users contacts, calanders and Wiki's were restored to 2/24/12.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.52.15 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 8.52.43 PM.png

  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 13, 2013 10:53 PM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 13, 2013 10:53 PM in response to ebrind

    I am begining to think this is not a Time Machine Problem and more like OS problem. I just did a Carbon Copy Cloner backup and restore and lost my Wiki's and my Users Contacts and Calendars. My Time Machine Backup of the of dumpall.psql was 235MB however my Carbon Copy Cloner backup of the same file was 53MB. My dumpall.psql.gz in my Carbon Copy Cloner file was the same as my Time Machine Backup File and Wiki's were restored back to 2/24/12 the same time as the last modified time stamp.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-03-14 at 12.05.21 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2013-03-14 at 12.05.44 AM.png

     

    So now what ?????? There does not seem to be any EASY way to backup and restore this information at all.

  • by ebrind,

    ebrind ebrind Mar 14, 2013 10:35 AM in response to ebrind
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 14, 2013 10:35 AM in response to ebrind

    Here is another interesting tidbit. I booted to my Carbon Copy Clone external drive backup and my Wiki's, Contacts and Calendars were from 2/24/12 so even a clone of your server does not give you a backup of this information. So I leave you with this as I move on to 10.8.2 server and see if its fixed.  Manually backup each database so you can manually restore them. I have not tried this yet and will post the results when I do.

     

    I am going to try this solution and see if it works however I have yet to find an easy way to restore the dumpall.psql file by itself and it appears to me this is the only way to get your info back.

     

    http://sourcenetworks.posterous.com/lion-os-collaboration-services-manually-back i

     

    I hope this issue is fixed in 10.8.2?

  • by iToaster,

    iToaster iToaster Mar 14, 2013 11:20 PM in response to ebrind
    Level 3 (739 points)
    Mar 14, 2013 11:20 PM in response to ebrind

    Wow thanks for posting this info

    That's a worry to say the least

     

    When you cloned the machine was it shutdown

    Have you tried superduper