Mount external storage for backup

[inomi13]

I’m wondering using external object storage, such as MinIO, to store users’ backups because I don’t have enough local disk space.

1. What is the best way to connect or mount this storage on a server running DirectAdmin?
2. Can DirectAdmin write backups directly to MinIO or another S3-compatible storage?
3. If direct S3 support is not available, should I mount the bucket using  rclone mount ,  s3fs , or use another method?
4. Are there any known issues with file permissions, reliability, or backup restoration when using mounted object storage?

 

[neboysha]

Mounting an external storage on any Linux OS should not be tied to hosting control panel running on that server. It is mostly OS dependable thing. So you want to mount it so you could backup as it is local drive?

I used to use on one server (not DirecAdmin) s3fs. It was Virtualmin powered server. It was in fstab as well so it will be available upon rebooting in dir let say /S3 and used to backup to it. It turns out not reliable as it got disconnected from time to time. It was EC2 instance btw and S3 was like local disk for that.

So gave up and tar backups locally and send them to S3 as an archive.

 

[Ohm J]

one issued, during prepare the backup, directadmin will copy to the tmp in the same target directory backup, it's gonna consume read/write that might costly depending on the services when you using online storage like amazon S3 or cloudflare R2, if it's private your own cloud service, it fine... it's just gonna consume network bandwidth.

if you want to do proper backup, I suggest using FTP backup to your mount directory storage, admin backup -> FTP -> local DIR storage,

FTP backup will prepare the tmp_files in speacial directory

 

[inomi13]

I have private server where is MinIO, currently I save backup local storage and after that I copy backup via rclone to MinIO.

I want to improve this process because local storage is going to full and I don’t want to extend it because my server provider wants to much.

On my server I have one more solution which is backuply from softaculous where I am be able to create backup and transfer to server MinIO, however I am looking for the best solution.

 

[kingstondouglas]

Mounting an external storage on any Linux OS should not be tied to hosting control panel running on that server. It is mostly OS dependable thing. So you want to mount it so you could backup as it is local drive?

I used s3fs on an EC2 server before, with the bucket mounted through fstab so it was available at a directory such as /S3 for backups. It seemed convenient at first, but it turned out not to be very reliable because the mount would occasionally disconnect. I’d avoid treating S3 as a local disk and use direct object storage support where possible. Even when I buy laptops online, I prefer reliable storage solutions, and the same principle applies to server backups.

So gave up and tar backups locally and send them to S3 as an archive.

I’d use DirectAdmin’s native S3 compatible backup support if it’s available in your version. That is preferable to mounting MinIO because it avoids the extra filesystem layer. If native support isn’t available, rclone would be my choice over s3fs. Mounting object storage can cause issues with permissions, latency, interrupted connections, locking, and large files because S3 isn’t a normal POSIX filesystem. Whichever method you choose, test actual backup restoration regularly. Uploading a backup successfully doesn’t guarantee that it will restore properly. For production backups, I’d also use dedicated credentials with access limited to the backup bucket.