Backup thru Samba share - dangerous?

T

Trilithon

Registered
Hi,

Since I'm a newbie to the Macworld the following questions might seem stupid but nevertheless, I need to know...

Is it safe to backup data residing on a Mac OS X server to a win2k server using a samba share on the OS X server?
Will the data be usable to mac clients (osx) after a restore?
I'm thinking maybe the resource fork will be missing after a restore but then again, OSX doesn't use resource forks anymore does it?

Regards
T
 
Trilithon said:
Hi,

Since I'm a newbie to the Macworld the following questions might seem stupid but nevertheless, I need to know...

Is it safe to backup data residing on a Mac OS X server to a win2k server using a samba share on the OS X server?
Will the data be usable to mac clients (osx) after a restore?
I'm thinking maybe the resource fork will be missing after a restore but then again, OSX doesn't use resource forks anymore does it?

Regards
T
Click to expand...

I don't think it should be a problem, but you should compress/archive the backups to preserve the file system better. .dmgs are nice for backups.
 
If you're just talking about data backup, then there's no problem. Like was suggested above, archiving the data is optimal for future usability. Another method than the one suggested by HateEternal is to Ctrl+Click (right-click) on the folder you want to back up and select "Create Archive" from the dropdown menu. Then just upload the .zip file it creates to the Win2k server.
 
However... Some users have the "need" to use special characters in their file names. You know: •, © and the likes. ;) ... Those can pose problems and stop the copying process. I generally advise users to name their files "internet safe" and with an internationally readable date. For example "letter_mr_newman_project2_20060321.doc". Instead of "That letter re: project2™ to Mr. Newman 2006/21/03.doc", which would be totally wrong for my taste as well as for Windows and Mac OS etc.
 
Eh, its OK. Just be careful about possible loss of OS X specific data or special characters, as was mentioned.

What software are you using? There's probably an agent. Also consider any ACLs and such you might be using.
 
As you can see in one of my previous threads I'm using Backup Exec for Windows Servers 9.1 installed on a win2k server. On our Mac OS X Server 10.4.3 I've installed the MacOSX agent (be_agnt.tar) that is shipped with BackupExec.

The volume that I need to backup is rather large, almost 1 Tb and I need to make one full backup every friday and then differential backups every monday-thursday. I've set up a shedule for this in BackupExec but for some reason I'm suddenly not able to reach the remote agent from my win2k server when issuing a backup or restore job.
The funny thing is that I do ohave the ability to select data for backup using the agent.

I don't know where to begin my search of failures so in the mean time I thought I could do the backups thru the SMB share instead.

Do you have any ideas on how to archive the volume each night?
As mentioned earlier, I'm a total noob on OSX and Mac's as well.

Regards,
T
 
Eh, most folks I've heard form either have that agent work immediately or never do. I'd contact Veritas for help.

Coincidentally, if you wanted out of Veritas, I have a white paper on backup up OS X Server at http://www.district13computing.com/docs/backup3.pdf

With over 1TB of data, it'd be great to be able to restore directly. Also, remember, I'm fairly sure that the Backup Exec agent doesn't preserve things like ACLs.

I haven't tried it yet myself, but maybe look at Unison:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/index.html

Michael
 
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