How to restore files from the automatic /projects/sysbio backup
CVS
In the future, consider checking all your source files into
cvs, and periodically committing your changes.
If you do this, then you will never have to worry about destroying your files and having no recourse.
You can read the
lab cvs web page or ask someone in the lab for help.
Caveats / "why aren't my files on the backup?"
- Any file or folder ending in
.tmp or .temp, or named /tmp or variants thereof, is not backed up.
- Any folder named
Remote is not backed up. Do not name important directories Remote. If you must use this name, use a different name and then make a symbolic link named Remote.
- Backups only run daily, around midnight. Files from earlier in the day won't be backed up.
- Backups disappear after 3 months.
- Backups stop working if the backup drive is full
- Backups stop working after power failures... sometimes.
- No one notices if backups stop working, so it can take a while for backup problems to be corrected.
- Files on individual machines are not backed up. If you were working on
disco:/temp, or jive:/usr/local/bin/ your files are not backed up.
- Files in your home directory (/cse/grads/...) are not backed up by this system. They might be (or might not be) backed up by the College of Engineering. They definitely won't be here.
How to restore files
Were you using CVS? If so, you can try recovering the file from CVS. This is probably the best solution!
If you weren't, or your CVS copy is too old, but you were working on
/sysbio/, there is a good chance that you will find your file (or at least some earlier version) on the automatic backups in hustle.
0. If you cannot find the backups, try typing: "df". You may find the backup filesystem in the list of mounted directories, in case you didn't know where it was.
1. SSH into
hustle.cse.ucsc.edu
2. Once you are on
hustle,
cd into
/export/notbackedup/sysbioback/sysbio , and you will find a daily backup.
(Previously the backups were in: /export/projects/sysbioback/.snapshots/ with a bunch of folders like these:
daily.0/ daily.2/ daily.4/ daily.6/ monthly.1/ weekly.0/ weekly.3/ daily.1/ daily.3/ daily.5/ monthly.0/ monthly.2/ weekly.2/
3. These are just normal directories, so
cd into them,
ls around until you find your files, and then copy them over to the real sysbio.
4.
Do not modify anything in the backup directories or attempt to "clean them up".
5.
Do not modify anything in the backup directories or attempt to "clean them up".
daily.0 is yesterday's backup.
daily.1 is a day before that, up to
daily.6.
daily.7 is rolled into
weekly.0. After that, the backup resolution becomes weekly, and then monthly. So it is best to catch any file-deletion problems sooner rather than later. If you wait too long (more than 3 months), the inadvertent deletion will propagate all the way to the last backup, and your files will be gone for good.
Note that this is one reason you might want to use
cvs --your files' histories will be saved forever, and the CVS repository is a much more reliable backup system (however, it is not good a good idea to use
cvs for binary files or large files).
cvs is really easy to use, so if you don't know how to use it, you should read the
lab cvs web page.
I lost my files by doing a recursive "make clean"
If you are using
quick.mak or
recurse.mak, then
make make_clean does a recursive
rm -rf to everything specified in the $(CHILDREN) variable in the Makefile.
Never manually edit files that are in the $(CHILDREN) directories.
I can't cd into /export/projects/sysbioback/
Uh oh. Are you on
hustle? That's the only machine that can access it. If you are, and it still doesn't work, then there is a backup problem, and you should email
cluster-admin.
