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Backups

CoffeeLink News Server stores information about messages, users, roles, and news groups in a custom database. This database is updated frequently while the server is running to keep it up to date as the information changes. It is important to maintain a backup of this database if you wish to restore the server following a disk drive failure or other disaster. Because the database is subject to change at any time, simply backing up the database directory during normal operation is not sufficient to guarantee a proper backup. The recommended procedure for generating a current backup of the database is to first shut down the server using the Configure program. Once the server has been shut down the database can be backed up safely. Once the backup is complete, the server can be restarted.

Because shutting down the server for backup might not be possible for all customers, CLNews periodically produces a compressed ZIP file of the database. An updated ZIP file is produced once every eight hours. This periodic archive process rotates the backup across three ZIP files. You can view the modification times of the files to determine which contains the most recent archive. Backing up these ZIP files to tape will always provide a consistent (though not necessarily current) copy of the CLNews database. To restore the database from one of these ZIP files shutdown the server, rename or delete the current database directory and then unpack the most recent ZIP file using jar or some other ZIP tool. This will create a new database directory containing the state of the database at the time the ZIP file was made. After restoring the database it may be necessary to restore appropriate database permissions. (See Changing Database File Permissions for more information.)


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Next: Canceling Messages Up: Administrator's Guide Previous: Users   Contents
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