VDMS Backup and Restoring Options

VDMS added the feature of backing up the DB folder using the following options.

These instructions assume you already install tar 1.28 and bsdtar for copying sparse folders.

sudo apt-get install bsdtar

Backup DB

Setting the Backing up options in the configuration file in VDMS (config-vdms.json)

1. The variable autoreplicate_interval specifies the time interval the application wants to backup the DB folder. This value should be greater than 0.
2. The variable unit specifies the unit of the autoreplicate_interval variable. This value should be one of the following options: h (hour), m (minute), or s (seconds). We are planning to add the date option to trigger the back_up at a specified date.
3. The flag backup_flag specifies whether to use the auto-replication thread. By default, this value is false.
4. The variable backup_path specifies the path to store the backup DB. By default, if not specified, this value is the DB path (db_root_path).

Example:

In this example, the backup will be triggered every three hours of the vdms-server life. The default location of the backup DB is the db path that was specified in the vdms_config.json file. However, this can be changed using the backup_path variable in the config file.

autoreplicate_interval: 3
unit: "h" 

Naming of the backup DB:

Currently, the code produces the following output:

1. <filename>.tar.gz file that represents the actual DB folder after compression. <filename> represents the datetime of the back_up (Www Mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy), without spaces, to show the version/history of the backup. For example, WedMay1816:37:122022.tar.gz means that the backup occurred on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 16:37:12. This filename will be used by the configuration file in order to help restore it when needed.
2. <filename>.json file that saves the configuration of the DB at the moment of backing it up. The <filename> is the same as the compressed backup file.

Manual Archiving

To manually copy/archive a VDMS database only, please see Archive a VDMS Database.

Restoring the backup DB

In order to restore a version named WedMay1816:37:122022.tar.gz, for example, apply the following steps:

1. Locate the backup file of interest, i.e. <backup_path>/WedMay1816:37:122022.tar.gz.
2. Use the -restore flag when launching VDMS to retrieve the configuration file of for the backup file, extract backup data, and mount it to VDMS.

./vdms -restore <backup_path>/WedMay1816:37:122022.tar.gz