Keeping Your Business Online with eDirectory ™ Backup and Restore Brian Hawkins Software Engineer Novell, Inc. Roger Harrison Engineering Manager Novell, Inc.

Vision…one Net A world where networks of all types—corporate and public, intranets, extranets, and the Internet—work together as one Net and securely connect employees, customers, suppliers, and partners across organizational boundaries Mission To solve complex business and technical challenges with Net business solutions that enable people, processes, and systems to work together and our customers to profit from the opportunities of a networked world

Deployed Versions Novell eDirectory ™ and Novell Directory Services ® (NDS ® ) Product VersionBuild VersionPlatforms NetWare 5.1 SP4 (NDS 7)DS.nlm v7.57NetWare 5.1 NetWare 5.1 SP 4 (NDS 8)DS.nlm v8.79NetWare 5.1 eDirectory 8DS.nlm & DS.dlm v8.79NetWare 5.0,Win NT/2K eDirectory 8.5.xDS v85.23NetWare 5.x,Win,Solaris NetWare 6 (eDirectory 8.6)DS.nlm v NetWare 6 eDirectory 8.6.1DS v NW 5.1,NW 6,Win,Solaris,Linux NetWare 6 SP1 (eDirectory 8.6.2)DS.nlm v NetWare 6 eDirectory 8.6.2DS v103xx.xxNW 5.1,NW 6,Win,Solaris,Linux eDirectory 8.7DS v10410.xxNW 5.1,NW 6,Win,Solaris,Linux,AIX

Differences between eDirectory and Novell Directory Services (NDS) NetWare 6 NetWare NDSeDirectory NOS directory focused on managing NetWare ® servers A cross-platform, scalable, standards-based directory used for managing identities that span all aspects of the network—eDirectory is the foundation for eBusiness NetWare 5

eDirectory Backup/Restore Design Goals High availability  Ability to perform backups on a live server that is performing updates concurrently with the backup Scalable  Performance that enables backup of directory servers containing tens or hundreds of millions of objects  Ability to restore in hours Work within the distributed nature of eDirectory

Solution: Hot Continuous Backup with Roll Forward Logging High availability  Performs hot backups on a live server that is performing updates concurrently with the backup Scalable  Backup and restore entire DIB (Data Information Base)  Limited only by I/O channel bandwidth Work within the distributed nature of eDirectory  Keeps Roll Forward Logs to ensure recovered server matches the synchronization state that other servers in the tree expect

How Hot Backup Works Two “flavors” of backup  Full backup includes all blocks in the entire DIB  Incremental backup includes any blocks in the DIB that were modified since the last full or incremental backup

How Hot Backup Works Update Object

How Hot Backup Works

How Restore Works Restore last full backup Apply incremental backups taken since last full backup (in order) Replay roll-forward logs since last incremental backup Verify that the synchronization status of newly- restored DIB matches what other servers in the tree think it should be Open the DIB and bring the server back on line

Typical Backup Strategy Full backup weekly on Sunday night Incremental backup each night except Sunday Roll-forward logging enabled Backup Schedule

Setup/Configuration Roll forward log settings are stored in the _ndsdb.ini file Roll forward logs are off by default Changing the location of the roll forward logs  Place the logs on a separate drive system then the DIB set  Roll forward logs will contain sensitive information so control access to the roll forward log directory  Roll forward log volume must be monitored as the logs grow

Setup/Configuration (cont.) Maximum and minimum size Maximum: This is the maximum size the log can reach before creating a new file Minimum: After reaching this size a new log will be started after the current transaction is finished Log stream files A copy of modified stream files are placed inside the log file

Backing Up eDirectory Backup header contains valuable information Backup file header is in XML format The backup file can be limited in size A 250 meg backup limited to 100 meg would be Test.bak < 100 meg Test.001 < 100 meg Test.002 ~ 50 meg Each file has its own header A log is kept of each backup

Backing Up eDirectory (cont.) Including the security files in the backup Including other files in the backup  A file is given to the backup program that contains a list of files to include  Files are listed with a “;” between and a “;” at the end  No spaces no returns  These files are placed in the header of the first backup file sys:/system/autoexec.ncf;vol1:/personal.txt;

Backing Up eDirectory (cont.) Cold backups  Database is closed during the backup  Database can be disabled after the backup Provides the ability to migrate a database with security information  This method does not include file system trustee rights (NetWare only)

Restoring eDirectory Restore process 1. NDS Database is closed 2. Backup file is restored to RST 3. Incremental backups and roll forward logs are applied 4. The RST database is disabled (to prevent accidental opening) 5. The RST undergoes the verification process 6. On success the RST database is renamed to NDS and opened

Restore Verification The restored DIB is opened and all partition entries are read Items read  Servers in replica ring  Referrals for each server  Local received up to vector Each server in the replica ring is contacted and the local received up to vector is compared to the transitive vector from the remote server

Trees Designed for Backups For catastrophic failure/recovery eDirectory needs to be designed so recovery can take place without using the roll forward logs  One server or a set of servers that contain replicas of the entire tree but do not share replicas These servers are then used as master copies of the tree and the rest of the servers are restored using replication  Not configuring eDirectory for catastrophic failure can still be restored using a lot of dsrepair work

Demo Server 3Server 2 X Server 1

Demo Server 3Server 1

Incremental Backups Roll-Forward Logs Full Backup New Server Server 2 Updates Demo Server 1Server 3 Updates

Getting More Information: BrainShare 2002 IO206—Choices in Disaster Recovery  Reviews the best strategies for providing disaster recovery in Novell networks and presents a range of solutions from low-budget options to larger investments that provide everything plus the kitchen sink