Re: LDAP Backup and Restore

[Aaron Richton <richton@nbcs.rutgers.edu>]

On Tue, 26 Oct 2010, Anton Chu wrote:

> I'm in need of figuring out how I can effectively backup my ldap server then restore it in case of crisis. 

The supported method of backup/restore is slapcat/slapadd.

> 1. /etc/init.d/slapd stop

There is no reason to stop slapd with modern slapd backends/versions.

> 2.  tar the following directories
> /etc/ldap
> /var/lib/ldap

I'm not sure what you're keeping in those areas. Things like schema files, 
your init scripts, etc. should be kept somehow. I consider this more of a 
system-level issue than an issue for OpenLDAP software, personally, but 
it's definitely something to keep in mind...

> 3.  convert the configs and dit to ldif
>
> sudo slapcat -n 0 > backup/config.ldif
> sudo slapcat -n 1 > backup/users.ldif

This is the important part; make sure to do this for each defined 
database.

> 4./etc/init.d/slapd start

Again, unnecessary since you shouldn't need to stop in the first place.

> Restore procedures:
> 1.  Reinstall a fresh vanilla ubuntu ldap server
> 2.  untar the compessed.tar.gz to original location
>
> 3.  /etc/init.d/slapd stop
> sudo slapadd -n 0 -l backup/config.ldif
> sudo slapadd -n 0 -l backup/users.ldif
> sudo cp backup/ldap.secret /etc/ldap.secret
> /etc/init.d/slapd start

That's certainly along the right idea.

> Just a brainstorm and I'm sure it needs revising. 
> TIA,
> Anton