I’m currently evaluating urbackup for my backup solution.
I have a single Windows 10 computer running VirtualBox and several clients both Linux and Windows.
Using urbackup to backup and restore the client machines is pretty straight forward.
But what about the host Windows computer? Taking image backups, database backups and file backups is straight forward.
File restores of the Host seem pretty straight forward , i.e. mount the latest file backup up and copy.
But what if I want to restore the image of the Windows Host? That doesn’t seem straight forward.
Example: Let say I want to install the latest update of VirtualBox. Were I using Windows Backup I would 1) Shutdown all my Virtual Machines. 2) Take a Windows Image backup 3) Install the update.
If I found an issue updating I’d want to roll back to the pre-update image. Under Windows Backup that is pretty straight forward. 1) Boot Rescue USB 2) Restore Image.
Under urbackup I’m not sure what the procedure would be. I cannot use the restore option from the usbackup_restore usb since the server isn’t running. And I have no instructions for how to do it manually. I could probably muddle my way though mounting the OS Drive and the Image virtual disk and doing a restorative copy but that seems error prone.
Certainly there is a better procedure for restoring images of Host computer’s OS?
Urbackup is a client server backup program. It is designed so that the backup server (where backups are usually stored) is a separate machine from the client (where you have things to back up).
I guess you are using removeable media on your single machine for backup storage. Urbackup isn’t designed to do this. There are lots of advantages with the client server model, but if you want a single machine backup solution then it is probably better to look at other programs.
I appreciate your response and you are likely correct.
But that still begs the question of: How do people who use this in a multi-computer environment backup the Host URBackup computer? Are they using someone else’s backup software?
What you are asking is how do I backup the backups? Because that is all that should really be on the urbackup server. Its host OS is there just to host urbackup server. You can improve the robustness of the host by using something like ZFS as the file system. That should protect against bitrot and single disk failures depending on how it is setup.
If all the host disks fail fatally however, you would lose the backup history. Current data will still be on the clients. Some people leave it at that and take the risk. Others take a dump of the history and copy it somewhere else, but it is likely to get large.
What I do is have a second urbackup server that I switch on once a month. All the clients backup to both servers. It provides a measure of redundancy.
Again, thanks for the quick response. But I am not asking, “How to backup the backups?” I’m not asking: How to backup the sqlite database as I found that setting.
I’m asking, How to backup (and restore) the HOST running URBackup?
I understand that IF I put the urbackup CLIENT on the urbackup host computer I can get backups of it. But there is no easy means to restore the HOST computer’s OS should I have an issue for which I need to roll back to a previous image.
Here is a scenario: Computer A is running urbackup along with other monitoring utility software. Computer A is connected to NAS which holds the backups including the backup of the urbackup database. Computer A backs up Computers A, B and C on a schedule.
While installing an update to another utility running on Computer A an error occurs such that Computer A needs to be restored to the previous image.
I have never had that issue because I use a vanilla ubuntu install dedicated to run urbackup server. Urbackup is designed to backup clients not the server.
1 Do a bare-metal restore of the urbackup server
2 Re-install the urbackup server software
3 Copy the urbackup db from its backup location (hopefully you checked the option to back it up too)
4 Reconfigure and test.
If so, that’s not too arduous. If as you say you have two backup servers you could use Computer A to backup Computer B and Computer B to backup Computer A.
Then when Computer A fails you COULD use the urbackup-restore usb to restore Computer A from Computer B or vise versa.
And if this is the recommended procedure i.e. having two dedicated backup servers which back each other up then I guess that is an answer to my question.
One would think this would be documented. In fact, I was expecting someone to provide me a link to where this was documented.
Anyway, thanks for your help. Maybe someone else has another idea.
First, I am sincere in my appreciation for your input. You’ve helped me think though this issue more fully as well as helping to confirm that I didn’t miss something obvious when reading the documentation.
Second, I understand that you do not use your two servers to back each other up. But, if you are using common storage you could. In that way, your two urbackup hosts do not need to be dedicated but could be utilized for other purposes.
Finally, thanks again. I’m still evaluating urbackup as a solution. I’ll likely set it up in the lab and test the two host solution we’ve discussed.
If someone else has an idea then I’d certainly entertain it.
Yes, you do use your two servers to back each other up.
Each of two computers run both the UrBackup server and the UrBackup client.
Each backup server backs up all clients including the client on itself.
Do not include the backup storage drive in any backup.
Any client can restore it’s files from either server.
The USB client can restore an image to a computer from either server except, the client on one of the two servers must restore it’s image from the other server.
Never may one backup server backup it’s own backup storage drive or the other server’s backup storage drive.
A backup storage drive cannot be backed up, nor may it be copied, due to the millions upon millions of hard links used to de-duplicate the data stored on the storage drive.
If you lose one backup storage drive.
The other backup server and it’s storage drive remain intact and operational until the defective storage drive is replaced.
If you lose one backup server machine then it’s image can be restored from the other UrBackup server machine.
Using the same storage device/machine for both servers would be a bad idea.
My solution to this puzzle is a fairly “simple” one.
My Backup box only runs the URBackup Server nothing else.
It is a second hand HP ProLiant N40L from EBay. But it could equally be any old scrap hardware laying around that you can shove multiple hard drives into.
I run UNRAID on this server. It has its own built in system of disc redundancy. Working on the basis of a “parity” disk and then other hard disks in the same box. Unlike standard RAID it does not need equal size disks. It also does not need much skill to setup. (I am not a Unix Guru, but get by with this machine fine).
Thanks to the UNRAID system I do not need to “backup” this server. It has its own redundancy built in. A quick copy of the boot stick now and then is the only backup I need. If the server let out its “magic smoke” and failed I can I can put the USB stick into a new machine, transfer drives, and be up and running in new hardware.
If a single drive fails in UNRAID, you pull it out, insert a blank new one, and the server will rebuild that lost disk.
I backup four different Windows PCs to this server using using URBackup clients.
This system has saved my butt many times. I have had Window’s hard disks fail, and UNRAID disks fail. In each case I can buy a new disk, slot it in, and recover.
Only extra I’ll mention is it is a good idea to have some UPS setup. Especially during recovery as full recovery can be pretty slow.
Also I would advise using slightly newer hardware than that old HP Proliant. Mainly due to the age of that disc controller being a little “slow” in operation.