Textual LDIF backup strategies for busy LDAP clusters

[Nick Urbanik <nick.urbanik@optusnet.com.au>]

Dear Folks,

our old backup system for our LDAP clusters using slurpd is as
follows:

1. A dedicated slave (we call it a "sync") has a replogfile
   configured.
2. A cron job moves the replog file to a backup directory every 15
   minutes.
3. Another cron job runs every 24 hours, which:
   a. Stops slapd.
   b. slapcats to a file which is compressed with gzip.
   c. starts slapd.
4. Another system backs up the backup directory.

Now we like text formatted backups, and I need to implement a similar
or better system with syncrepl.

Here are my questions:

1. Would the auditlog overlay be an appropriate replacement for the
   replogfile? 
2. Can we run this on the master without stopping slapd?
3. Would we be able to accurately reconstruct the data using the
   slapcat and periodic copies of auditlog files?

I will write software to fully automate whatever scheme we determine
to be the most appropriate.
--
Nick Urbanik http://nicku.org 808-71011 nick.urbanik@optusnet.com.au
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I disclaim, therefore I am.