[imp] Help for abckup!

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Andy <andylau@maxxbiotech.com>:

> Configuration:
> Red Hat Linux 7.3
> Qmail-1.03
> courier-imap-1.5.3
> Horde-2.1
> IMP-3.1

No database?

> I want to backup all the incoming and outgoing emails for all the users but
> I do not have any idea how can I do that? Do I need to re-configure the
> system to save all the mails?

If you actually want to save a copy of *all* email's received, you need
to do so as they are delivered.  That is, you will need to save a copy
somewhere else in addition to delivering it to the user.  There are 
programs/patches/plugins/etc. out there to do this for you, or you can
probably come up with various ways to do it yourself.

(You could, in theory, just deliver to a mail spool that is writable by
your MTA and read-only to all others including your MUA's, but that is
kind of silly).

If you do have a database, and want a real backup of that, then you should
use your database support programs to "dump" or "export" the database
out to a text file.  Backing up the live database is not reliable.

Then just back up the machine (all of it) as normal -- say with "dump" or
your favorite backup program.  Backup everything (except swap, maybe /tmp
or such).  You may need other info when it comes time to restore (for
ownerships, mail/folders saved to home directories, etc).  My practice
is to back up everything on the machine except swap and /tmp (unix based
systems -- similar for other systems).

If possible, idle the system for the backup.  If you can't, then using LVM
(standard in RedHat 8.0, add-in for previous RedHat versions) to make a 
snapshot would be the way to go.  If you do backups on a live/active file
system, you will get (rarely, but without doubt) inconsistent backups.

This is not a complete answer, as your question isn't really well formed,
but it should be a start.

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Why get even? Get odd!