Consistent backup while in use

client
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Home page mentions: UrBackup backups your computer while you use it. Open files, like Outlook .pst files, get backed up without problems

MySQL: How to backup and restore MySQL/MariaDB mentions: You might not be able to setup a snapshotting method on Linux

I take it that consistent backup while in use then, is windows only? I assume windows client will use volume snapshots for all backups on all windows versions?

Linux ext4 does not snapshot - does this mean consistent while in use backups, cannot be done on ext4? Or is the linux client doing something to make the file backups on ext4 client consistent while in use?

Trying to understand how clients work to ensure consistent while in use backups supported on all my client types. Thanks.

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LVM snapshots or dattobd depending.

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I also had no idea that the backup client will try use dmsetup to do snapshots, so that should work on filesystems that don’t do snapshots by themselves I take it?

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I know people have it working, I can’t tell you the details, as far as UrBackup is concerned I’m an all-windows shop.

The document you referenced mentions make sure you’ve set up a snapshotting mechanism… I know UrBackup can use the mechanisms mentioned, I’ve not (on a quick search or a scroll through the administration manual) found how you set them up… One of the reasons I’ve got no Linux clients in my setup is the documentation is about as clear as mud for Linux. It’s not that I don’t have Linux set up anywhere as an OS.

Sorry, at this point you need to wait for someone who actually uses the program ON Linux, rather than me.

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As Bearded_Blunder points out, you can use LVM snapshots or the dattobd driver.
There is another option as well; you can use btrfs as your file system as it includes snapshot functionality.

This is the route I took as the dattobd driver will not work with modern kernels and it is unlikely that it ever will. In addition, btrfs is significantly faster than LVM when using snapshots. UrBackup has built-in support for using btrfs snapshots during client backup.

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