IST Backup Service - Workstations and Laptops

Workstations, both Windows and Mac OS X, may be backed up by the Legato NetWorker server, normally hoover.uwaterloo.ca. Backup operations normally occur overnight, so the workstation must be left powered on and connected to the network overnight. After a backup operation has completed, the backup server sends email to the user indicating the success of the backup, and showing how many files were backed up.

Laptop Computers

Laptop computers are usually connected to the campus network only during working hours (8:30am-4:30pm). Because Legato NetWorker usually performs its backups overnight, a different technique was developed to handle computers that connect to the campus network at unpredictable times. Every hour between 5:00am and 4:00pm, the backup server attempts to establish a connection with each computer in its list of computers to be backed up during the day. If it makes a successful connection, and it has been more than 18 hours since the last successful backup, then a backup will be initiated. After the backup has completed, email summarizing the backup operation will be sent to the user.

Each computer that is backed up is identified by a unique IP address, so if your laptop makes a wireless connection to the campus network, it can NOT be backed up by Legato NetWorker because its IP address will be different each time it connects to the wireless network.

Back Up Only the Data You Need

Much of the data on a workstation does not need to be backed because it can be re-created from original media. This includes the operating system as well as applications such as Microsoft Word.
At the present time there is an unfortunate bug in the Legato NetWorker implementation: for Windows clients it is not possible to omit files SYSTEM DB, SYSTEM FILES, SYSTEM STATE and ASR from the backup. For workstation backups, these files will be deleted on the backup server before the calculation of the monthly backup charges. Thus the user will NOT be charged for backing up these system files.
The instructions for installing the Legato NetWorker client include a section on how to Select the files to be backed up, which allows the user to select only the folders that need to be backed up.
Note: Any file or folder created at the root level after the Legato NetWorker client has been installed and configured will be backed up unless it is explicitly omitted from the backups. See installing the Legato NetWorker client for details.

Monitoring the backups

Although a detailed list of the files backed up is not readily available, an estimate of monthly accumulated charges is available online; select a year and month of interest. A machine must have backed up some data in a particular month to appear in this list. Note also that although charges may show for Windows SYSTEM files (see previous section), they will be removed before the real month-end charging is processed (on the 3rd of the following month).

Restoring Files and Folders

Users may recover files and/or folders from their own workstation. Only in rare instances will the system backup operator perform a recover operation for a user.

Temporarily Stopping the Backup Service

If there is a need to temporarily stop backup service on your laptop / workstation, which is backed up during the day, you can do that by creating a lock file.
For Windows systems : C:\Program Files\Legato\nsr\tmp\nobackup.lck
For Linux systems : /nsr/tmp/nobackup.lck
When you wish to resume the backup service, you must delete the lock file. There is a monitoring service in place which will warn you if your computer's last backup is more then 10 days old.

Permanently Stopping the Backup Service

At some time you will probably need to replace your workstation with a newer one. Even if the hostname of the new workstation will be the same as the hostname of the old workstation, you cannot simply move the backup service from the old workstation to the new one. You need to terminate the backup service for the old workstation and install new client software on the new workstation. To terminate backup service for the old workstation, complete the form for IST Backup Request. When you click on the URL, you should be taken to the IST Problem Tracking System. In the pull-down menu which shows Please Choose Request Type, select IST - Backup/Recover, click Create a New Request, fill in the blanks, including the hostname and Terminate Backup Service, then click Submit Request.

Last updated by Paul Henderson on November 12, 2008.

Keywords: (none)