 Mirroring your FirstClass network store
To simplify your backup procedures and allow you to keep your server running during backups, you can mirror your network store contents to the volume of your choice, pause the mirror, then back up the mirror contents while your server continues to run normally.
The FirstClass server maintains a synchronized system by continuously building a list of files to copy on the main volume(s) and copying them to the volume designated to hold the mirrored content. There are two lists that are created in the mirroring process: a full list and an incremental list. Your server continuously mirrors information until you pause the mirror to perform your backup. Your system is always mirroring.
You can only mirror volumes with a status of full use and limited use. Volumes which are browse only cannot be mirrored. Additionally, mirroring to an AppleTalk-mounted volume is not recommended because calls to AppleTalk block and cause degraded FirstClass performance.
Make sure there is sufficient space on the mirror volume to hold the existing network store and any expected growth. If there is not sufficient space, you will receive a disk write error and the server will retry 10 times. If it still fails, you will receive a retries exceeded error.
Notes
If you encounter "Not enough memory to operate on file" displayed on the server console, it is a mirror error and indicates that more memory is required. To solve this, add physical RAM to the computer or change the "Preferred size" memory allocation.
Source files with resource forks that are mirrored lose the resource fork in the mirrored copy (for example, .SES files with .CTB resources).
If you are running FirstClass as a Windows service, you can use the PAUSE and CONTINUE commands to perform the pause and continue functions:
• to pause mirroring, issue the command NET PAUSE FCS
• to resume mirroring, issue the command NET CONTINUE FCS.
What is mirrored on the server
All the folders in your network store folder are mirrored with the following exceptions:
• FCNS\SERVER\DBEXT (Windows) or fcns\Server\DBEXT (Mac OS X)
• FCNS\FCAS
• FCNS\FCRAD
• FCNS\NOMIRROR (Windows) or fcns:nomirror (Mac OS)
• LogFiles folder
• Stats.Dir folder
• Internet Services files, such as en.fc and mimetype, which you may have modified.
Remember to back up the Internet Services files from the original volume.
Note
The first time you perform mirroring, all your network store files will be synchronized. On a large network store, this can be a lengthy task taking several hours. Therefore, it is best to set up a network store for mirroring for the first time when there is no user or trash collection activity.
Mirroring tasks
You must perform these tasks to use mirroring as part of your backup process (both of these tasks are part of the same set of steps as seen in Enabling mirroring below:
• enable the mirror on the full use volume
If your mirrored volume is A and the volume you wish to mirror to is B, then set B to full use.
• point the mirrored volume to the volume in which to mirror.
Configure the volume you want mirrored (for example, volume A) to mirror to your chosen volume (for example, volume B). This is done in the Volumes folder on the administrator's Desktop.
To enable mirroring:
1 Open the Volumes folder on the administrator's Desktop.
2 Select the volume you want to mirror.
3 Choose File > Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Mac OS X).
4 Fill in the fields on the Disk Mirroring tab.
5 Click OK.
After you click OK, the initial synchronization process begins, building a list of files to copy (the "Mirror Status" is yellow during the syncronization process). This is a one-time task that must be performed for each full volume with a network store on it. You can view synchronization progress on your Server Monitor's Volumes tab. After this stage is finished, the server automatically completes the next stage, which is copying those files. When both of these stages are complete, the "Mirror status", on the Server Monitor's Summary tab (in the Core Services folder), is green.
Backing up mirrored content
If you have a network store spread across several volumes, you should back up all these volumes each time you perform a backup, to avoid breaking cross-volume links.
To back up a mirrored volume:
1 Choose Admin > Control > Pause Mirroring.
If you have a network store spread across several volumes, this will pause activity on all volumes.
2 Use your backup software to copy the mirrored network store.
This network store has the name FCNSnnnn (Windows) or fcnsnnnn (Mac OS), where nnnn is the four-digit hexadecimal FirstClass ID of the source volume.
3 Restart mirroring after the backup is complete by choosing Admin > Control > Continue Mirroring.
An incremental synchronization will be performed automatically.
Permanently stopping mirroring
If you want to replace your network store with a backup, or move your network store to a different machine, you need to permanently stop mirroring. To do this, perform the following tasks on each mirrored volume:
1 Open the Volumes folder on the administrator's Desktop.
2 Select the volume for which you want to stop mirroring.
3 Choose File > Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Mac OS X).
4 Clear "Enable disk mirroring for this volume" on the Disk Mirroring tab.
5 Click OK.
You can check the Volumes tab of the Server Monitor form to make sure the "Disk mirror status" for this volume is Not mirrored.
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