Plesk 12.x / Linux :: Disaster Recovery / Fastest Restore
Apr 9, 2015
I'm working on a plan for restoring my whole Plesk server fast in a worst case scenario. Which will never happen hopefully.
The backup is a full backup done by the Backup Manager in Plesk. It lies on a remote FTP server.
Right now I'm fetching the whole backup directory with wget while in the background the Plesk Installation is running. These actions take about 1h to complete.
Afterwards I would restore with /usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore.
Is there a better way? For example installing Plesk directly out of a full backup?
I am not familiar with quick backup methods, but let me give you an example which might help you provide me with the best possible information.
1. I currently run a hosting business.
2. cPanel accounts are backedup nightly.
Question: I am worried something may happen to the server (DoS Attack) or just an internal error - what would be the quickest way to have your entire webserver back online?
I was thinking another HD with the same installation/configuration.
What procedures have other hosting organizations taken to prevent there web server from loosing downtime.
I'm putting together a disaster recovery plan and I'm trying to come up with a quick way to get new machines in place in case of catastrophic hardware failure, e.g. two servers go down at the same time (this is an HA setup and must always remain fault tolerant). At this point I'm trying to find someone who would rent a server to me, allowing me to take physical possession of it.
Why do I need physical possession of it? The problem is that I use IP-based storage on a private network and therefore can't rely on a rented server in another cabinet, even across the aisle in the same datacenter, without adding significant complexity to my setup.
So my question, in summary, is this: What would be the fastest, cheapest and simplest way to get a new server in my cabinet in a few short hours?
My servers are going to be in Colo4Dallas, so if there's a provider there who specializes in this or has made an arrangement with you or someone you know in the past, please let me know about them. If you can think of a better way to do things (the obvious solution of investing in more servers excluded),
I'm used to operating dedicated servers. This year I want to venture into getting a reseller account and / or media temple account.
With my dedicated servers, I do automated mysql dumps and I do nightly rsyncs of all my /home /etc and other important data so disaster recovery is possible.
My question is, how do you do the same thing? Sleep well at night? with these regular web hosting accounts?
I see most newbie people who pay for web hosting do not bother to backup their data. Ignorance is bliss until disaster strikes.
How do you automatically backup your data (mysql and directories) in your multiple web hosting accounts like reseller or grid service media temple?
I'm trying to find a good hosting provider to host our company's website as our fallback option in case of disaster. One or two dedicated servers should do it, but it'll need the space/bandwidth to host a database of around 60-80 gigs, with the ability to rsync newer copies of the database on a regular basis. We also need to store a Tomcat website, which will take up much less space, but also need to be rsynced to be kept up to date on a regular basis, though less often than
Also, we probably need Red Hat Linux specifically, as opposed to other flavors of Linux.
Of course we need root access to install the other apps we'll need. My paramount concern is the security of our companies data, much of which not only has to be protected for our companies sake, but also for laws such as HIPAA, etc. Cost is a consideration, but security, dependability, and flexibility (root access to our machine, ability to rsync between sites) is more important.
I was wondering if anyone's got suggestions for me, hosting providers they've liked for these purposes? I'm looking at Media Temple's dpv Nitro option right now ...
There is so much information on disaster recovery and backing up one's server, that I'm getting glassy-eyed trying to take it in. Maybe if I became an actual case study, and get some "group think" help, this thread could benefit many others in a similar situation.
Current Situation:
1. I'm a small hosting company, 5 years in existence, with about 350 clients. www.mlhi.net
2. Dedicated Linux server, PLESK CP w/unlimited domains license, fully managed at HostNexus (great guys). It does not have a RAID array (used to have that at Rackspace) but it does have a backup drive that everything is backed up to with a cron job every night.
3) In addition I have a Linux Sys Admin on retainer, www.linuxbox.co.uk (he is better than excellent). Two years of excellent server maintenance and security on top of the managed service I get at HostNexus.
4) I just bought a VPS plan at JauguarPC.com after much research (a lot of it here at WHT) and as they say "so far so good" with the ease of dealing with them. I have not setup anything there yet- just got the VPS provisioned a few days ago.
Fears and Concerns:
1. Data center destroyed/ my server burns up (including backup drive) etc etc.
2. DDOS attack (which did hit this data center a few months ago and I was down for hours)
3. If I had to FTP everything back to another server from my local, at 18 GB, it's not too cool.
Want to do this:
1. I want my Sys Admin to run a backup copy (and incrementals every night) to an identically configured VPS server at JaguarPC. Both servers are now running identical PLESK 8.4.
2. I want the fastest recovery possible without spending a ton of money. I know this means I don't get an "instant" recovery, but recovery within 24 hours is more than OK. None of my customers are ecommerce... just brochureware sites.
My "I'm not an expert" plan:
1. If primary server goes bye-bye forever, I can login to my BulkRegister/Enom account and change the child nameserver IPs to the IP's of the VPS. In 24 hours or less, every request for the nameservers would then be routed to the new server.
2. I can create an A record on every domain like www2.johndoeinsurance.com that would point to the IP at the VPS, so I can ease my mind anytime I want to make sure everything is safe and sound on the second server, and ready to go in an emergency.
How do I configure the DNS?
I control dns at Enom for about two-thirds of my customers. I have ALL domains pointed to ns.mlhi.net and ns2.mlhi.net. Here are my options??
1. I create two more child nameservers... ns3 and ns4 and have then pointed to the IPs at the new server, then update all the domains I control. The rest of the customers I can email and ask them to add the additional nameservers. I know... good luck on them doing it.
2. I change the ns2 IP to go to the new server. And I make sure when I make edits on a website during the day that I FTP to both servers.
3. I don't have any nameservers assigned to the new server. I just change the IP on the existing nameservers in the event of an emergency.
Would like to know what are the dangers of backing up and restoring full entire system backups (with plesk installed) to another server with a different ip address? Will the restored plesk setup operate properly and offer an ip address change in the system, or will there be any pre-requisites required such as manual ip changing within the system core files?
I deleted my databases unconsciously in Parallels Plesk 12 for CentOS.I want to restore all data because it's more important for my activities.Is it possible to restore or others possibilities for my problem ?
i have make a full Plesk Backup on my Old Server with Plesk 12.0(Ubuntu) and will restore the Backup on my new Server with Plesk 12.0(CentOS).When i will restore the backup i get this error: "Error: The source file is not a valid XML file. If you supplied an archive file containing a backup from Plesk version 9 or later, then extract the contents of this archive, and process the extracted XML file with the converter. If you want to convert a backup file from a Plesk version earlier than 9, then you first need to process it with the pre9-backup-convert utility, and then process the resulting file with the pre10-backup-convert utility."
I made a backup of my website with plesk backup manager on an external FTP, now I want to restore this backup on a new server which isn't using plesk, for test purposes. I've downloaded the backup (which is in .tar) on my PC, and extracted all files firstly from the general .tar archive, then the user_data from .tgz. Then to extract all the databases (they were in a folder "databases" after I've extracted the general .tar file), I extracted them from database_name_145536536.tgz, then from database_name_145536536.tar, so that now I've a series of "database_name_145536536" files. (145536536 are some example numbers).
I'm interested in restoring both files and mysql databases.
To restore the files, I can simply use the extracted files from the user_data archive.
To restore the mysql databases, I tried to do "mysql -p -u username database_name < file" and everything seemed to work fine.
Is this process ok? Is it 100% safe and sure or I could face some bugs?
Yesterday we upgraded V.11 to V.11.5.30. And now we are not able to restore our backups anymore from our main server on our failover server by CLI (we have automated this with cronjobs and need the CLI backup/restore). We have a failover sulotion with two servers and restore the backups of our main server on our failover server!
If we try to create the map file on our failover server, we get the error:
The dump specification '/home/backups/plesk_partnerserver/dumps/backup_info_1308030132.xml' should be inside of dump directory '/home/backups/plesk/dumps'. /home/backups/plesk_partnerserver/dumps is the path on our failoverserver where we store the backups of our main server and /home/backups/plesk/dumps ist the regular dump path of the failover server.
And if we try to restore the file without creating a map file on our failover server with /usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore --restore backup_info_1308030132.xml -level server: Unable to resolve all conflicts
What happend? Now after upgrading to 11.5 our backup- and failover-solutions are in big trouble!
After restore (without any errors) some of my files are missing from one particular domain. The files are present in the backup however, they just don't restore. In this case it is a Wordpress installation and the complete wp-content folder did not restore one one of the domains.
I've generated migration files on a source server that runs plesk11.5..I've transfer these files to my new server (plesk 12).I've logged into plesk on the new server, go to migration tool and create a new migration using local files.with chrome dev tools. i can see the following a post request is sent to :
/plesk/ server/migration/start/ the response is a redirection ( http status 303 , location = /admin/backup/restore/type/import/id/migration )a
After several attempts to this url I've got : admin/backup/restore/type/import/id/migration net::ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS..is there a way to restore the data using the command line ?
I am trying to restore a backup that Parallels Plesk made (latest version) and I used to get the option at some point to replace everything. Now, I only get the options to select what I want to restore and it fails because it says certain things, domains, content is already there.
I can't find the option anymore that allows me to say replace everything during the backup. Was that removed? If so, I'd really....really like it back.
Warning: Failed deployment of domain localhost.localdomain Warning: Execution of /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/api-cli/domain.php --create localhost.localdomain -owner admin -do-not-apply-skeleton -notify false -guid 4fe5de63-3103-4fa0-a01c-04894e167107 -vendor-guid 75b2fa01-6c6e-4cb2-8f1b-9c69757fd3ec -creation-date 2014-02-13 -ip 46.165.251.98 -ignore-nonexistent-options failed with return code 1. Stderr is An error occurred during domain creation: There are no available resources of this type (domains) left. Requested: 1; available: 0.
I am using Plesk 12.0.18 Update #51 on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS.
I want to restore a single Domain from Plesk GUI but it failed:
Archiver error: from /private-backup/plesk/clients/WSKunde/domains/domainname.de/backup_domainname.de_conf_1506200200.tgz: forkExecvPipes: execv() failed: No such file or directory System error 2: No such file or directory Warning: domain "domainname.de"
I have to restore only the cronjobs for a spcecific domain from a plesk backup which is stored on another server. I searched in all the full backup structure but impossible to retrieve the data.
I cant restore my back up. Get following warnings:
Warning:
php_version 5.3 is not supported. It will be replaced with php_version 5.4 for the following service plans: Unlimited, Admin Simple, Default Domain, Default Simple, Web Presence Builder, SiteBuilder
Warning:
python is not supported. It will be disabled for the following objects: Service plan 'Unlimited', Service plan 'Admin Simple', Service plan 'Default Domain', Service plan 'Default Simple'
Warning:
The component fail2ban is not installed. It will be disabled for the following objects: Server settings
Warning:
php_version 5.3 is not supported. It will be replaced with php_version 5.4 for the following websites: swen.flugzeugbilder.orgClick to expand...
I have a repository backup that I want to partially restore. I see the option "Selected Objects" but it cannot be selected. I'm wondering why that is not an option? I'm also wondering what "restore this backup despite the fact that it does not have a valid signature" means. I see a check box. Is Plesk telling me my backup doesn't have a valid signature? What is the meaning of a "signature"?
I have a VPS running Plesk 11.x and yesterdady I tried adding a new domain to my subscription and received this error:
Error: Unable to update domain data: Unable to restore the DNS zone: an error occurred while adding the DOMAINNAME IN A DOMAINNAME record: Incorrect DNS record values were specified.
I have one subscription and under that a few domains. I've not had any DNS issues before so I'm a little stumped as to where to start looking. I suspect DNS template issues but I'm not that au fait with the DNS template so I don't want to start fiddling. My service provider suggested I look at [URL] ... which doesn't appear to be related as I have no duplicate domains under my subscription.
Following on from this the VPS is my personal server and I host a few sites for friends consequently I only have the one subscription. I've been advised that I should have one subscription per domain. Is that correct information?
I set up a FTP backup repository today however when attempting to restore selected objects from the backup there are a couple of messages that state:
"Restore the backup file despite a corrupted signature"
"You can select objects to restore only when you are restoring from backups that were created in Plesk 12.0 or later."
I noticed that the backup residing in the FTP repository has a .tar extension whilst the one I did in the server repository has a .xml extension.
Restoring selected objects from the server repository works fine.
Why is this not possible? I'd like to restore selected objects from the FTP repository. Otherwise I'll have to transfer the backup file from FTP repository to the server which is really inefficient.
to recover a back-up from my server which i deleted yesterday. is there any linux utility/script or whatever which can restore data?
I'm running centos 4.3 64-bit SMP
Harddisks: 6 X 18.2 GB U160 scsi disks, 15k rpm 2 disks in raid 1, on channel 0 to the raid controller (OS and software) 4 disks in raid 5, on channel 1 to the raid controller (web files, php, html, images etc. and all databases. )
Volumegroup 1 logical volume 1 = 14 GB for the OS Logical volume 2 = 4 GB for the swap file
Volume group 2 Logical volume 1 = 20 GB, mounted to /var for the databases and other var stuff Logical volume 2 = 30 GB, mounted to /home for all webfiles etc.
The backup was located on VG2, LV2 = /home , and i removed it by using the rm -rf command.
