vps backups

RimuHosting VPS Backups

RimuHosting run backups of each VPS once a week. We try to keep 2 copies of the backup.

To do this (in both UML and Xen) we pause the VPS, copy its file system, then resume the VPS.

We pause the VPS so that its filesystem does not change during the backup. The 'pause' will not normally affect active network connections. e.g. if you have an ssh connection or an httpd connection to the server it is not normally broken.

The backup process does _not_ require the server to be restarted.

The snapshot typically takes a minute or two per GB of data on the VPS file system (e.g. a typical backup would take 5-12 minutes).

The backups run between 0500 and 0700 UTC. The backups run daily, but each VPS is backed up on just one particular day of the week (so the backup load is spread over a full week).

If you need your backup to run at a particular time/day let us know the day and hour of day in a support ticket (UTC) and we can set that up for you.

If you go to your VPS control panel (under VPS Management at http://rimuhosting.com/cp) it will indicate that a backup is in progress (in place of the regular reboot buttons). In the status section of this page, you can see when the "Next Backup Time" is scheduled. The VPS Control Log will normally also report the date/time of the last backup we had made.

The backup time is not (currently anyway) configurable by the end user.

Backups use a lot of disk IO and so performance on the VPS' can be a bit slower than normal during these times. If your VPS is not responding at about this time, check your VPS at http://rimuhosting.com/cp and see if the back message reports that the VPS backup has started but not finished.

If you do not wish your VPS to be part of this backup process, just pop in a support ticket and we will remove your VPS from our weekly backups. Note we offer an FTP server with space on it for you to run your own backups/restores as often as you like. See http://rimuhosting.com/howto/backupspace.jsp

If you ever lose any files (e.g. via a accidental 'rm -f / oops') then just pop in a restore type support ticket so we can either recover those specific files for you or do a full restore from the backup.

RimuHosting Dedicated Server Backups

RimuHosting do not backup dedicated servers. You are able to run your own backups per http://rimuhosting.com/howto/backupspace.jsp Also if you have two dedicated servers with us then you can rsync copies of data you need between them.

If you have your dedicated server setup as a VPS host per http://bliki.rimuhosting.com/space/knowledgebase/rimuhosting/vps+setup+on+dedicated+servers then we would be doing backups of those VPS instances.

Log Errors

When a backup runs, your VPS will be paused. You'll probbaly get errors like these in /var/log/messages:

SysRq : Emergency Sync

Emergency Sync complete