How to Back Up and Restore NetWare DS

(Last modified: 19Nov2002)

This document (10012766) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

goal

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Novell NetWare 5.0

Novell IntraNetWare 4.11

Novell IntraNetWare for Small Business

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Reference Appnote: August 1995. This has the full information on backup and restore. Below is a summary.

General Backup Procedures
How Often to Back Up NDS. In general, NDS should be backed up on a regular basis. The frequency of this backup depends on how often changes and updates are made. For a tree that changes often, you may want to perform an NDS backup every time you do a full backup of all servers on the network. You should definitely back up NDS prior to major tree modifications.

An NDS tree cannot be backed up entirely if all replicas of any partition are off-line. To get a full backup, the entire NDS tree needs to be functioning (all partitions synchronizing normally). If not, you will have to include and exclude containers to get a usable backup.

Note: For more information about how to check your NDS tree for proper synchronization, refer to the accompanying document entitled "Troubleshooting Tips for NetWare Directory Services."
Backing Up NDS. To back up NDS, the TSANDS.NLM module must be loaded on one server in the tree. Preferably it should be the server containing a replica of the largest partition. This will minimize network traffic during the backup process and improve performance when the backup program must perform name resolution across the NDS tree.

The version of TSANDS.NLM that shipped with NetWare 4.1 (and later versions) allows selective backup and restoration of an NDS tree. (Not all third-party backup applications support this option. Check with the application vendor for details on product features.) In SBACKUP, you can begin the backup of the Directory from any container object in the tree, and the process will continue from that point downward to the end of that portion of the tree. If the selected container is the Root of the tree, the entire NDS tree will be processed. This allows you to back up the entire tree or subsets such as a single branch, a single container, even a single leaf object. Also, a new scan option has been added which will allow backup of only those objects for which the backup user has supervisory rights.

Note: We recommend that you back up the entire NDS tree in a session whenever possible. Although partial NDS backups and restores are now possible, there are numerous precautions and additional issues you must take into account. (For more information, see the section on "Partial NDS Restores" in this AppNote.)

Backing Up the File System. To back up file system data, an appropriate SMS TSA must be loaded on each server for which a file system backup is to be created. For NetWare 4.1 servers, load TSA410.NLM. (For NetWare 4.01 and 4.02 servers, load TSA400.NLM.) Once these SMS TSA modules are loaded, you can proceed to load the device drivers for your backup hardware and run the backup program of your choice.
To get a proper backup of file system information, make sure your backup application can handle the NetWare file system's name spaces, extended attributes, trustee rights, compression, and so on. It is also useful to have the ability to do a trustee-only backup (the option to exclude data streams).

General Restore Procedures
Whenever possible, use an active replica to restore what was lost from the NDS tree. If this is not feasible, follow this general process to restore from an SMS backup:
1. Restore NDS information first.
2. Restore file system data and trustees last.
It is vital that you perform these steps in the order indicated above. Restoring file system data and trustees before you restore NDS objects can result in lost or incorrect trustee rights.
NDS should be functional (partitions synchronizing normally) before you proceed with a restoration. It is difficult for an NDS restore to complete successfully in a dysfunctional tree. (See the accompanying document "Troubleshooting Tips for NetWare Directory Services" for help in verifying proper synchronization.)
When restoring file system trustees, objects with trustee rights being restored should exist in the tree at restore time. The object ID for the object on the server being restored will be used. A replica containing the object does not have to be on the server. NDS creates external references as necessary. (An external reference is a pointer to an NDS object not found locally on the server; it is used to authenticate and reference objects that are not local to the server.).

document

Document Title:	How to Back Up and Restore NetWare DS
Document ID:	10012766
Solution ID:	4.0.3921374.2238576
Creation Date:	19Jul1999
Modified Date:	19Nov2002
Novell Product Class:	Management Products NetWare Novell eDirectory

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