Backups and Restores | Computing Services | CSE Department at the OSU
Backups and
Restores
- Backups - The CSE Dept. runs nightly backups of all of our instructional
servers, home directories, and D:\ drives of Faculty and Staff PCs. This
data is retained for 10 months before being overwritten. We also perform hourly
and nightly "snapshots" of everyone's UNIX home directory. Hourly snapshots are kept
for 24 hours and nightly snapshots are kept for 7 days. These snapshots are a good way
to recover files that have recently been deleted.
- Off-site Storage - Each week, copies of the weekly backups are taken
to a secure location downtown, so that data will be able to be restored in the
event of a catastrophic event in our building.
- Restores - If you need a file restored that was deleted less than 7
days ago, you can perform the restore yourself. Simply open a UNIX window and type
cd .ckpt while in the directory that contained the file you need restored.
The .ckpt directory
contains 30 sub-directories (one for each of the past 24 hours and one for each of the previous 6 days),
each containing a
snapshot or copy of your files. The directories are named with a timestamp corresponding to the
date and time the snapshot was taken. You can cd into any one of these directories
to look for the file you need. Once you find it, use the command cp filname
../../ to return the file to it's original location.
Files deleted more than 7 days ago will need to be restored from a tape. You should submit a Help Request by sending an
e-mail to help@cse.ohio-state.edu with the name
of the file you need restored, the original location of the file, and the date
you need it restored from.
