Re: backup up ldap db

[Roel van Meer <rolek@linvision.com>]

Matthew Palmer wrote:

> > > > can an ldap db be backed up while in use?  I have seen references of
> > > > people using slapcat to output the db to text files.
> > >
> > > That apparently shouldn't be used on databases in operation; the database
> > > files are left in an inconsistent state while the server is in operation.
> > > The server needs to be shutdown before running slapcat.
> >
> > I wonder, are the database files (the .dbb) left in an inconsistent
> > state, or is the resulting ldif file inconsistent?
> 
> The .dbb files would be in such a state as to make it impossible to get an
> LDIF which, if used to populate another slapd, would not result in the same
> data being presented as that available in the original directory.

Ok. That doesn't matter too much to me. My specific usage involves
dumping the entire database, and parsing the resulting ldif file,
taking out only a little part of the information i need. We reckoned
that was faster and generating less load on the server than doing an
full search.

The database is quite large, there will about 5 million entries in
the db, and i need some data out of each entry.

> I don't even know whether slapcat would be able to make sense of the files,
> but certainly the backup would not contain what you expected.  I don't think
> you could ruin your .dbb files directly; slapcat is a read-only process.

That was my idea as well.

> Disclaimer: I'm not an OpenLDAP developer, so I don't have a definitive
> answer.  I'm just going on what I've read in the literature, some past list
> postings, and my knowledge of dbm.

Okay. Thanks anyway. I won't blame you if i ruin my system :)

Regards,

rolek

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