zfs discuss - Aug 2008 - ZFS automatic snapshots 0.11 Early Access

Hi all,

I''ve just pushed some of the changes coming up in 0.11

hg clone ssh://anon at hg.opensolaris.org/hg/jds/zfs-snapshot

I''ve got some commentary on the Early Access nature of this release at:

http://blogs.sun.com/timf/entry/zfs_automatic_snapshots_0_11

Comments (and bug reports) welcome!

	cheers,
			tim

Hey Tim,

Could I ask for your input on this thread in the CIFS forum?
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=273586&#273586

We''re looking at autohome folders for windows users over CIFS, but
I''m wondering how that is going to affect our backup strategy.  I was
hoping to be able to use your automatic snapshot service on these servers, do
you know how that service would work with the autohome service when filesystems
are being created on demand?

There''s talk there of autohome firing off a script as users connect,
would we need to make use of something like that to create the new filesystem
for the user, and add it to the list of filesystems your service is backing up?

thanks,

Ross
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 03:53 -0700, Ross wrote:
> We''re looking at autohome folders for windows users over CIFS, but
I''m
> wondering how that is going to affect our backup strategy.  I was
> hoping to be able to use your automatic snapshot service on these
> servers, do you know how that service would work with the autohome
> service when filesystems are being created on demand?
If you''re using 0.11ea, and you''re creating filesystems on the
fly, so
long as the parent filesystem you''re creating a child in has a
com.sun:auto-snapshot property set, the child will inherit that zfs
user-property, and snapshots will automatically get taken for that child
too, no user intervention needed.

The automatic backup stuff in the service (not turned by default) should
handle incremental vs. full send/recvs, even on newly created
filesystems. If it finds an earlier snapshot for the filesystem, it''ll
do an incremental send/recv, otherwise it''ll send a full snapshot
stream
first, followed by incremental send/recvs after that.

[ of course, you''d be sending these streams to other zfs filesystems,
not just saving the flat zfs send streams to tape, right? ]

	cheers,
			tim

That sounds absolutely perfect Tim, thanks.
 
Yes, we''ll be sending these to other zfs filesystems, although I
haven''t looked at the send/receive part of your service yet.  What
I''d like to do is stage the send/receive as files on an external disk,
and then receive them remotely from that.  I''ve tested the concept
works with a single send/receive operation, but haven''t looked into the
automation yet.
 
The plan is to use usb/firewire/esata disks to do the data transfers rather than
doing it all over the wire.  We''ll do the initial full send/receive
locally over gigabit to prepare the remote system, and from that point on it
will just be incremental daily or weekly transfers which should fit fine on an
80-200GB external drive.
 
When I get around to it I''ll be pulling apart your automatic backup
code to see if I can''t get it to fire off the incremental zfs send (or
receive) as soon as the system detects that the external drive has been
attached.
 
We will be using tape backups too, but those will be our disaster recovery plan
in case ZFS itself fails, so those will be backups of the raw files, possibly
using something as simple as tar.  We don''t expect to ever need those,
but at least we''ll be safe should we ever experience pool corruption on
all four servers.
 
And yes, you could say we''re paranoid :D
 
Ross
> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:14:10 +0100> From: Tim.Foster at Sun.COM>
Subject: Re: [zfs-discuss] ZFS automatic snapshots 0.11 Early Access> To:
myxiplx at hotmail.com> CC: zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org> > On Wed,
2008-08-27 at 03:53 -0700, Ross wrote:> > We''re looking at
autohome folders for windows users over CIFS, but I''m> >
wondering how that is going to affect our backup strategy. I was> > hoping
to be able to use your automatic snapshot service on these> > servers, do
you know how that service would work with the autohome> > service when
filesystems are being created on demand?> > If you''re using
0.11ea, and you''re creating filesystems on the fly, so> long as the
parent filesystem you''re creating a child in has a>
com.sun:auto-snapshot property set, the child will inherit that zfs>
user-property, and snapshots will automatically get taken for that child>
too, no user intervention needed.> > The automatic backup stuff in the
service (not turned by default) should> handle incremental vs. full
send/recvs, even on newly created> filesystems. If it finds an earlier
snapshot for the filesystem, it''ll> do an incremental send/recv,
otherwise it''ll send a full snapshot stream> first, followed by
incremental send/recvs after that.> > [ of course, you''d be
sending these streams to other zfs filesystems,> not just saving the flat zfs
send streams to tape, right? ]> > cheers,> tim> >
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