Plesk 8.0.1 backup utilities experience

[Artur]

I'm sending this to my salesman and invite everyone who agrees with me to do the same


To whom it may concern,

I am greatly disappointed in the quality of the Plesk 8.0.1 backup utilities. After working with PSA since 2000, I have seen the software improve with every generation. This latest backup/restore utility is a step in the wrong direction.

1) the pleskbackup utility no longer leaves a detailed log file
there is something that ALWAYS goes wrong during backup and the log
is our only avenue of troubleshooting.

2) there is no way to tell the backup utility not to dump log files or
to not compress the file to speed things up.

3) the pleskrestore utility also does not leave a log file so if something goes
wrong, we are on our own.

4) to restore ONE client, the system is right now decompressing the entire 30 GB
backup file and will then presumably take out the 10 MB of files that I'm actually
looking for.

The plesk forum is plagued with horror stories about restore files that simply refuse to restore themselves. And after this experience I am left wondering if this backup utility is something that we can rely on. We upgraded several servers to Plesk 8.0.1 but will hold off further upgrades for 7.5.4 servers until a more user friendly utility is released.

Best Regards,

Artur
eBoundHost.com
http://www.eboundhost.com

 

[Artur]

i'm amazed that nobody cares. this effects all of you.

 

[danliker]

in a other theard i found that there are 2 differnet backup utilitis (see http://www.swsoft.com/de/download/plesk/utilities/)

i don't understand why there are 2 backup utilities...

in the utiliti from the link obove, it looks like you have more options...

Usage:
  ./PleskX.pl <options>

Options:
  -s |--get-status           get status of the agent
  -dc|--dump-accounts=<list> comma-separated list of clients to dump
  -dd|--dump-domains=<list>  comma-separated list of domains to dump
  -da|--dump-all             dump all objects on hosts
      --server               dump server settings

  -lc|--get-content-list     get list of content files
  -nc|--no-content           make a shallow structure dump
  -co|--configuration-only   dump only structure
  -om|--only-mail            dump only mail content
  -nz|--no-compress          do not compress content files

  -o|--output=<file>        'tar' the dump files to the single file
                             (splitting on 2040M boundary and appending
                             .001, .002, ... suffixes)

  -d|--description=<text>    Add description to the dump

  -h |--help                 this help

but i haven't the time at the moment to test it out.

 

[bonzz]

hi danliker

with the backup tool PleskX.pl you can create a backup from a plesk version lower than 8 which is restorable on a plesk 8 system.

but be careful with this tool!!! we had severe problems while restoring a fullbackup from an entire plesk 7.1.7 server on a new plesk 8.0.1 system.
with pleskrestore we weren't able to restore the backup. after 15 minutes restoring, the server crashed. the load is getting too high! we tried it 3 times, then we gave up. we had to restore all domains manually... several days of downtime :-(

so, in my opinion, a really bad tool!
bonzz

 

[Artur]

In my opinion the entire backup system is not up to the task. The number one problem is that there are no log files. No status logs, no error logs, nothing.

 

[sieb@]

I was pretty disappointed with the new BUs in 8. Compared to 7/7.5, there are no useful options/switches. I had a whole backup script setup which is now useless in 8. Maybe they added everything automatically into the one command you need but so far I'm not happy with it. Guess it will just take getting used to.

 

[JD Austin]

I am in the same boat. My hard drive failed. They reimaged with plesk 8. It won't restore my plesk 7.5.4 backups.
It has made a HORRIBLE problem even worse.
I don't understand why they'd make the new backup incompatible.

 

[aaabyss]

It's really funny that this is the "PLESK" forum, yet we NEVER see any 'official' Plesk replies/responses/gotohells/ANYTHING????

PLESK, what is the story???

 

[sieb@]

Helps to read the disclaimer at the top of the main page:

The SWsoft Online Forum has been open to allow our customers to assist each other with questions regarding the use of PSA and Plesk software. Although it is monitored by the SWsoft staff it is not our intent to address support requests from within the forum. Any support requests should be submitted through our Online Support Form.

 

[aaabyss]

Like the blind leading the blind ..... really helpful.

Still seems you would care enough about your customers to make 'official' comments on important issues.

OTHER than telling us you don't really care such as this instead of dealing with the issue.

It's easier to make ONE post in here than to deal with 200-300 "standard support" tickets.

O WELL ....

Your business .....

 

[NightStorm]

Considering they don't even respond to reported posts about spam such as cell phone scam sales, I doubt we'll see them on here offering even a hint at support for the bugs they created and haven't released patches for.

 

[sieb@]

I think the matter here is customers pay for support, they don't get paid by fixing stuff through the forum. Another matter is not having the staff to continuously monitor the forum. Then there's the usual accountability issues related to answering problems through the forum. There's enough of us around here with plenty of PSA experience to probably do a better job of troubleshooting than SW-Soft's staff.

 

[nibb@]

Well its disgusting to pay for a software that doesn work, and they want after that, that you pay for support. Hey dude? What i should we them use plesk if it doesnt work, and we have to pay for support. This are basic functions wich doesnt work. Sw Soft should give free support. Its like selling you car but it comes without a backup tyre, and you bought it new from the factory. I still want to figure out how to restore a backup from a FTP. It seems you can only restore know from the repository and not from a FTP. But it does let you backup to a FTP but not restore from one? I wonder how put that bright idea into plesk.

 

[0031]

In Plesk 8.1 (community preview) there is a full-blown FTP repository support.

 

[NightStorm]

And how about reverse compatibility with older backup files (generated from pre-8.0) like they said was available in 8.0.0?
It was in the "What's New" file, but didn't exist. Is it coming in 8.1?

 

[zbakk]

How can one restore dumps created with PleskX.pl?

 

[0031]

Originally posted by NightStorm
And how about reverse compatibility with older backup files (generated from pre-8.0) like they said was available in 8.0.0?

Backup format is the same as it was in 8.0.x

 

[0031]

Originally posted by zbakk
How can one restore dumps created with PleskX.pl?

If you are using "PleskX.pl -o" - then such dump may be restored with pleskrestore.

Otherwise it should be possible through "import" feature of Plesk Migration Manager

 

[Artur]

hey 0031, how does server load look to you when backing up on the 8.1? Also, does it leave log files?

 

[NightStorm]

Originally posted by 0031
Backup format is the same as it was in 8.0.x

And as I said, how about pre-8.0? Search the forums, and see how many people are upset that sw-soft claimed compatibility with older backups, yet discovered that the new backup-restore feature in Plesk does not even recognise a backup generated from 7.5.4.