Re: backup up ldap db

[Matthew Palmer <mjp16@ieee.uow.edu.au>]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2001, Roel van Meer 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.

> In other words: do you end up with an inconsistent backup or do you
> ruin your database?

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.

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.


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Matthew Palmer
mjp16@ieee.uow.edu.au