Admin backup feature request.

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fmortara

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Joined
Jul 4, 2006
Messages
87
Admin backup store all backups in a folder named admin/admin_backups.

Is possible to store the backup in a folder named /admin/_admin_backups/YEAR-MONTH-DAY ?

It will allow to have many backup, ordered by date, without using any cron with subfolder (ie admin_backups/1 ecc...)
 
fmortara said:
Admin backup store all backups in a folder named admin/admin_backups.

Is possible to store the backup in a folder named /admin/_admin_backups/YEAR-MONTH-DAY ?

It will allow to have many backup, ordered by date, without using any cron with subfolder (ie admin_backups/1 ecc...)
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Unfortunately this is another one of those things about DA that annoys the hell out of a lot of people.

You have two backup systems, this one works great for packaging backups into an easy to restore single file but lacks the ability to roll it over into dated directories. Then you have the other backup system which works great for grabbing all the critical files and backing them up into dated directories but it doesn't package anything.

As usual you have the DA pros making the comments like "just write a script", well I did, in fact I have a NAS system that handles backups and rotates them into dated directories, but I still ask why I paid for a control panel and it lacks a most basic feature that cPanel has had for years. It is very annoying to setup a new server, load DA then have to go back and hack it up into doing things it should do by default.

What it comes down to is there should be a few check boxes asking about daily, weekly, and monthly backups, you check the ones you need and you're done. I mean is it really that hard to add a check box that can insert the day's date as the backup destination directory?
 
As usual you have the DA pros making the comments like "just write a script"
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I would not say "DA pros." I would say average system administrators. Average system administrators know how to do this with or without DA. If you are not at least an average system administrator then you probably should not be running a server anyway no matter what the control panel is.

Yes if DA had built in dating on backups that would be great. Does DA somehow prevent you from doing dated backups? No. It takes a short amount of time to setup dated backups. You just have to think about it for a moment.

Code: 
mk /home/admin/admin_backups/01 # 01 for January
mk /home/admin/admin_backups/01/01 # 01 for day 1
mk /home/admin/admin_backups/01/02 # 02 for day 2
# And so on until all the directories for all the months and days are created.

In the Admin Backups section create a separate cron job to do your backups for each day of the year storing them in the corresponding directories.

No fancy script needed. No expert needed. No hacking of DA needed.

There are other ways to do this as well. Its not the only way and it may not even be the easiest.
 
There is too many ways to do this. For example
Make a cron
Code: 
rm -f /home/admin/admin_backups &&  mkdir /home/admin/admin_backups_`date '+%F'` && ln -s /home/admin/admin_backups_`date '+%F'` /home/admin/admin_backups
This will save admin backup in al folder called "admin_backups_2009-5-18", and it will change every day.
 
Thanks walo. I knew there was a way to do it with the date command but I could not find it.
 
I would not say "DA pros." I would say average system administrators. Average system administrators know how to do this with or without DA. If you are not at least an average system administrator then you probably should not be running a server anyway no matter what the control panel is.
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I think you missed my point, I have a custom setup on my company's NAS arrays that are mounted as /backup. The normal admin backup runs and the status email sends when it's done, that email is piped into a script that triggers the NAS system to move the backup to a dated directory for each server and wait for tomorrows backups. This is what we use on our shared/reseller hosting servers, and it works for *US*.

We also own a colocation facility with dedicated servers and we license DA for colo boxes, the problem comes up with the average users putting in support tickets asking why admin backups just overwrite daily. Most of these users can get around in shell, but they just paid us for a license, why should they be in there tweaking the backup system just to get more than one day of backups? Some of them check this forum and see responses like the above and assume it's just crappy software. This is where a lot of them say "well cPanel does this...", and unfortunately we don't have a good answer to give them, so this is the point where some of them actually pay more to switch to cPanel. The average user does not want to get into the server and start setting up custom cron jobs to handle backups, they just want it to work.

My personal opinion on it? When I buy a control panel license I expect basic features to come with it, the backup system is one of them. I expect to install a firewall, I expect to install other custom/non-standard services, but having to tweak the backup system into doing more than daily backups when it could simply be a check box somewhere? no

DA is falling behind when you compare it to a lot of other CP's, there have been no significant changes in the past few years. Sure we got Dovecot and some other stuff here and there, but the feature set is lagging behind and some of our users are switching because of simple little things like the backup system. Also how hard is it to get a simple mail control panel? cPanel had this for years, and DA still hasn't added it. These are the the little things that add up into driving away DA users.
 
ngds said:
My personal opinion on it? When I buy a control panel license I expect basic features to come with it, the backup system is one of them. I expect to install a firewall, I expect to install other custom/non-standard services,
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So you expect the control panel to take the place of the administrator. I understand now.

Don't buy a screwdriver and then complain when it won't drive in a nail. No matter how many suggestions you make or how much complaining you do, a screwdriver will never drive in a nail. Buy the right tool for the job.

If DA is not the right tool for you then don't use it. You knew what you were getting when you bought it.
 
floyd said:
Don't buy a screwdriver and then complain when it won't drive in a nail. No matter how many suggestions you make or how much complaining you do, a screwdriver will never drive in a nail. Buy the right tool for the job.
Click to expand...

Your comparison is not as complicated as backups are. If you want proper backups in DirectAdmin there has to be some experience as to how everything works. What files are needed, where are they located, etc. - but in a way you're right.

So don't get me wrong here, I'm happy the way things are working right now. Please don't take this as an offence. We've scripted our own rotation as well. Though I can understand ngds' reasoning on this. I can imagine more people would like to see a similar feature added to DA and I can't blame them.

It's up to DA. If it were a vote I'd go for yes, please. Though it has no high priority for us.

You knew what you were getting when you bought it.
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That doesn't mean there couldn't be any feature requests of course :-)
 
Your comparison is not as complicated as backups are.
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My comparison has nothing to do with backups. The comparison is with DirectAdmin in general. We all know what DirectAdmin can and cannot do when we bought it.

ngds said he expected certain things when buying a control panel. But to expect those things of DA is like expecting a screwdriver to drive a nail. He expects something that DA cannot do yet and it was previously known that it could not do it.

Feature requests are definitely fine of course. But don't act like it should have been there when you bought it.

Oh and the DA to Cpanel comparisons drive me nuts because if you want DA to be like Cpanel then expect to pay the same price as Cpanel which is currently several times more expensive than DA.
 
Can you not understand anything you read? I'm not trying to argue with you about it, I'm just saying this feature should have been added by now, and now that there's a new thread I figured I'd throw in my comments. No one here is trying to change your option on the matter.

The control panel includes backup services, why does it need to be modified right out of the box? I have no problem modifying them because I run a custom backup storage system anyway. I'm talking about dedicated and colo customers bitching and moaning because DA lacks a feature that's so simple to add to the code of the control panel. To top it off they go in search of a solution and get the same kind of response you just gave me. It's been like this for YEARS...and I've canceled DA licenses over this very issue because the customer moved to a cPanel setup. I don't expect DA to turn into cPanel, in fact I hope it doesn't, but we're talking about a core feature here that customers complain about, and I'm trying my best to speak on their behalf.

This is a feature request forum...I'm requesting a simple feature to be added along with other people who feel the same way. I'm just a little annoyed that there's a bunch of DA servers here in our data center and over half of them are owned by customers who've asked about the backup system at least once.
 
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