I have a server that is backing up a client of ours. It is a windows server and I have tried a few times to migrate to linux without success.
I want to start a new server with the same private keys and client lists. I dont want the server to have any file databases or files stored.
So basically I want to take this new machine and plug it into the clients network and have it see all the clients that it knows from the previous server. I will then preform a full backup on each machine to start the backups from FRESH. The client list is important as I dont want to have to go to each and every pc at the clients business and set each one up individually again.
Was there ever a solution for this? It seems like this would be a very common request. I’d like to transfer the clients to another server to back up to both, but the new server would have its own backups, but same clients.
I’ve done this migration several times successfully on Linux. Here’s what I do:
Ensure UrBackup is installed on the new server
Stop UrBackup service on both old and new servers
Copy/rsync /var/urbackup from the old to the new server. This copies all settings along with the UrBackup database.
This step may not be necessary: Ensure the /var/urbackup directory on the new server is owned by user/group urbackup
Since you have copied the old database to a new server that doesn’t yet have any backups, you need to remove all existing references and backup records from the database so you can start fresh. This can be accomplished by running the following commands (I don’t know if all are necessary, but it won’t hurt):
urbackupsrv remove-unknown
urbackupsrv defrag-database
urbackupsrv cleanup -a 0%
Finally, start up the UrBackup service on the new server
While this procedure can take a while, especially if you have a big UrBackup database, it does accomplish what you want by preserving all server and client settings. After starting up the new server and giving it the same hostname as the old one, Internet-based clients will happily connect to it and create backups according to your previous settings.
The database cleanup and defragmentation can take a very long time, even on fast, flash-based storage. I wish there were a more efficient way to do it!
Did you have to change file permissions in order to copy/rsync /var/urbackup to the new server? Was I supposed to do this before installing URBackup on the new server?
I tried running: sudo rsync -a /var/urbackup user@address of new server:/var/
But I’m getting: rsync: mkstemp "/var/urbackup/*" failed: Permission denied (13)
No, I didn’t have to change permissions or ownership to allow the copying.
Your error is related to your user’s privileges on the remote system. If possible, rsync to the remote system as the root user (root@remote_server), which should bypass this issue.
If you can’t do that, then copy the files to a place on the remote server where your user does have permissions. Then login to the remote system, move the files, and fix the ownership as needed.
Followed the steps you outlined and it works. All my clients, history, settings, etc are all on the new server!
The issue I’m having now is that all my internet clients are showing as offline and I know that most of them are online. I had this issue once before and I resolved it by reinstalling on the client computer, but it’s very tedious and I have to contact each client for permission to access. Any ideas how to resolve this?
EDIT: Nevermind, After messing with ports in my router I got them all online. Thanks again for your help
I’ve always solved the issue with Internet clients by doing the following:
After migrating the database and ensuring the new server starts correctly, modify your DNS records so that the old backup server’s domain name points to the new UrBackup server. As far as I know, this is the only way you can avoid touching each client and changing the server’s domain name there.
If this doesn’t help, double check the firewall on your new UrBackup server to make sure the clients can connect.