All user data that lives in /users/USERNAME is backed up every day at 8:00pm MDT. These backups are incremental with a full every Friday.
The Network Appliance "filehost" file server on which
most of our Unix home directories live, has a very useful feature, one
that is built in to its fundamental native file system (WAFL). This
feature, known as "snapshots", is available from both
Unix/Linux and Windows systems. The effect of the feature is to
provide you, the user, with a read-only snapshot of how your files
looked at a particular moment in time.
In your Unix home directory on the filer, there is a directory called
.snapshot. If you browse it (either from
the command line with cd and ls, or using a
graphical explorer-like interface such as with Gnome, KDE, or Windows),
you'll see several sub-directories therein, perhaps something like
this:
paso krowe > cd .snapshot/ paso krowe > pwd /users/krowe/.snapshot paso krowe > ls -l total 2560 drwxr-xr-x 79 krowe staff 323584 Oct 23 16:40 hourly.0/ drwxr-xr-x 79 krowe staff 323584 Oct 23 16:40 hourly.1/ drwxr-xr-x 79 krowe staff 323584 Oct 23 16:00 hourly.2/ drwxr-xr-x 78 krowe staff 323584 Oct 23 10:00 hourly.3/ drwxr-xr-x 78 krowe staff 323584 Oct 22 16:34 hourly.4/ drwxr-xr-x 78 krowe staff 323584 Oct 22 16:34 hourly.5/ drwxr-xr-x 79 krowe staff 323584 Oct 23 16:40 nightly.0/ drwxr-xr-x 78 krowe staff 323584 Oct 22 16:34 nightly.1/ paso krowe > |
Within each of these hourly or nightly snapshots is a complete copy of how your files appeared at that time. This is a read-only copy, meaning you can browse the files, and/or copy them to "normal" (non-snapshot) locations such as your real home directory, but you cannot write to them, nor can you manually place files in the snapshot directories.
Windows users cannot easily browse these directories from an explorer window by clicking, but the files and subdirectories are there; you may have to enter the directory explicitly (by typing it in, e.g. via the RUN command from the START menu).
While it may appear that we're wasting huge amounts of space with these snapshots, we're not, really. The "WAFL" file system on the NetApp is constructed in such a way that the snapshots are like incremental backups; they really only contain the changes and differences -- at the disk block level -- between your current files and how they appeared at the time of the snapshot. If the file hasn't changed, they'll be identical and take up no extra space.
AOC Computing Infrastructure Department provides backup services
for a small number of mostly centralized systems. In general, you
should assume that your desktop and/or workstation disks are not
routinely backed up, unless you are told otherwise.
Unix/Linux/NFS
We operate a Network Appliance "filer" called filehost, on which is stored most of our home areas, and a whole lot more. We have an AIT-3 jukebox to do backups. The backup schedule is actually broken down into three groups: AIPS++, VLBA and AOC. Each of these groups contains a proper subset of computers that we backup. We use the Legato Networker software for backups. Each backup group performs an incremental backup every night and a full backup once a week. Here are the groups...
| Group | Hosts | Full Backup |
|---|---|---|
| AIPS++ | tarzan | Saturday 22:00 MDT |
| VLBA | jansky, magnolia, reber | Sunday 23:45 MDT |
| AOC | anxiety, bunyan, funes, revere, urania, vivaldi, zia | Friday 20:00 MDT |
This, plus the snapshot feature described above, provides us with a good solid backup regimen for our critical files. NOTE: most users have a quota of 300 MB in their home areas on the server; contact one of us if this is not enough for your needs. And remember; your backed-up-home-area on the filer is not intended for bulk data (FITS files, measurement sets, AIPS data, etc)!
See Backing Up Data in the AOC Computing Help pages for instructions on backing up your files yourself.
| Host | Device | Mount | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| celeste | hda1 | / | |
| filehost | - | /AIPS | |
| filehost | - | /asg | |
| filehost | - | /etc | filehost system configs |
| filehost | - | /evla | |
| filehost | - | /home | user accounts |
| filehost | - | /local | /usr/local |
| filehost | - | /mma | ALMA users |
| filehost | - | /os | OS install templates |
| filehost | - | /pakcages | scientific software |
| filehost | - | /vlba | |
| filehost | - | /vlbiobs | |
| anxiety | sdb2 | /export/home/anxiety | cups configs, networker |
| bob | sda1 | /export/home/aipssrc | aips build source |
| saltmine | hda3 | /export/home/saltmine | helpdesk tracker (wreq) |
| r2d2 | c0t0d0s6 | /export/home/r2d2 | oracle system |
| r2d2 | c0t2d0s2 | /export/home/r2d24 | oracle data |
| azalea | c0t3d0s0 | / | |
| azalea | c0t2d0s2 | /export/home/azalea | VLBA accounts |
| bunyan | sda1 | /export/home/bunyan | syslogs |
| funes | hda3 | /export/home/funes | |
| jansky | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| jansky | c0t1d0s6 | /export/home/jansky | VLBA data |
| jansky | c0t2d0s6 | /export/home/jansky2 | VLBA data |
| jansky | c0t2d0s7 | /export/home/jansky3 | VLBA data |
| jansky | c0t2d0s0 | /opt/janskylocal | OLD binaries |
| magnolia | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| magnolia | c0t1d0s2 | /export/home/magnolia | VLBA WWW tape tracking |
| magnolia | c1t2d0s2 | /export/home/magnolia2 | vlbasoft |
| magnolia | c1t0d0s2 | /export/home/magnolia3 | ingres |
| munin | sdb1 | /export/home/munin | e2e Archive VLA/VLBA Archive server. Currently this is only backedup manually on occation |
| reber | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| reber | c1t1d0s2 | /export/home/fxcorr | VLBA corrorlator |
| reber | c1t2d0s2 | /export/home/reber | |
| revere | sda1 | / | |
| revere | sda3 | /opt | mail/virus scanner |
| tarzan | c1t1d0s0 | / | |
| tarzan | c1t1d0s6 | /export/home/tarzan | aips++ users |
| tarzan | c4t1d0s2 | /export/home/tarzan2/aips++ | aips++ subdir |
| tarzan | c3t0d0s2 | /export/home/tarzan3/aips2mgr | aips++ subdir |
| tarzan | c3t0d0s2 | /export/home/tarzan3/aips++ | aips++ subdir |
| tarzan | c3t1d0s6 | /export/home/tarzan4 | aips++ |
| urania | c0t3d0s0 | / | |
| urania | md/dsk/d0 | /export/home/urania | old and unused |
| urania | md/dsk/d3 | /export/spool/ftp | |
| urania | c0t2d0s2 | /export/spool/ftp/pub/software/aips | |
| urania | c0t6d0s2 | /export/spool/ftp/e2earchive | |
| vivaldi | AOC new webserver | ||
| vivaldi | sda8 | / | |
| vivaldi | sdb1 | /export/web | main WWW structure |
| zia | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| zia | c3t0d0s6 | /var/mail | |
| zia | c3t0d0s5 | /opt/services | DHCP, bind, sendmail... |
| zia | c0t1d0s2 | /export/home/zia2 | ALMA and VME data? |
| Host | Device | Mount | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| banshee | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| banshee | c2t3d0s2 | /opt-locals | a local /usr/local for the VLA |
| banshee | c0t1d0s0 | /var/mail | local mail for some VLA users |
| banshee | c2t2d0s2 | /export/home/banshee | some VLA accounts |
| banshee | c2t0d0s2 | /export/home/banshee2 | |
| gaffer | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| gaffer | c1t0d0s6 | /opt/services | networker |
| gaffer | c1t0d0s3 | /export/home/gaffer2 | index and other networker records |
| miranda | c0t0d0s0 | / | |
| miranda | c0t1d0s6 | /old_stuff | model-t, cold fusion, Haffa's body |
| miranda | c1t1d0s6 | /old_local | hasn't been used since 2002 |
| miranda | c1t1d0s0 | /AIPS | |
| miranda | c0t1d0s0 | /opt/services | dhcp, named, samba |
| miranda | c2t4d0s0 | /export/home/miranda | some stuff |
| miranda | c2t4d0s6 | /export/home/miranda2 | some more stuff |
| miranda | c1t0d0s2 | /export/home/miranda3 | stuff not in other stuffs |