I have the Linode backup service-- is there a guide somewhere in the Library? I did a search but did not find it. I have a noob question- if you wanted to could you wipe your Linode clean and then restore a backup? Or is it better to restore a backup to a separate Linode and then copy/mount that to your original Linode?

There's no guide on using the service at the moment. You can do both! It depends on your reasons for restoring. If you have room on your plan, you can shrink your current disk images and restore as well. You'll have both your current images and the restored ones available to you in your profile.

Edit: There's a guide in the Linode Library now!

http://library.linode.com/linode-platform/backups/

Thanks Stan-- hey, why are you working today? I have one other dumb question- each backup snapshot includes all the files on my linode including databases, correct?

Stan is at the office preparing turkeys for the Linode Turkey Drop later today.

Yes, the backup snapshot has everything. Note that the database files it backs up (not mysqldump'd files, but the actual things in /var/lib/mysql or whatnot) will be in an inconsistent state, so it's a good idea to cron up a mysqldump before the daily backup and/or use binlogs.

(More than once, I have restored a backup to another, empty Linode, pushed the Boot button, and Everything Worked.

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Thanks, hoopy. I figured that to be the case but wanted to double check.

For all you Turkey eaters, have a good holiday!

Just a quick note on this: for best results, a mysqldump should share-lock all databases while it runs. This will cause a short outage on your application. The best practice is to replicate to a second server and make your backup dumps there.

MySQL replication has something of a reputation for being tricky to set up, and unreliable (although I've not used it myself)... For most people, scheduling backups during an off-peak period with a maintenance notice on the site is sufficient . Heck, if your database dumps only take a few seconds, you might not even need the maintenance notice, since users might not even notice the delay.

Like Hoopycat said, someone had to prepare the turkeys

I'm not quite clear on the steps involved. If I want to test this, what do I do?

1. Shut down my linode.
2. Delete the disk I want restored.
3. Create a new disk of the same size and name. Is this step necessary?
4. Restore to the new disk.

or

1. Shut down my linode.
2. Delete the disk I want restored.
3. Restore and the new disk will be created automatically for me with the same name?

Thanks,

doug

Support answered me - the 2nd shorter procedure is all that is needed.

doug

if i am wanting to do apt-get upgrade, should i wait for the backup post processing to finish? or is it safe to proceed before post processing has finished?

You're safe. By the time it started copying data to the backup server, it already had a consistent snapshot of your stuff. Any changes made after it takes that snapshot won't be backed up.

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thanks