[[TranslatedPages]] = Does May First/People Link backup my data? = == Overview == Yes - we do back up all data on all of servers and consider the backup an important part of [https://mayfirst.org/membership-agreement our responsibilities to our members]. We have a three-prong approach: * All servers have redundant disks. If one disk fails, the server continues un-interrupted. * We backup all servers nightly to an onsite backup server that keeps 5 days worth of data. * We also backup all servers nightly to an off site backup server that overwrite every night. {{{ Note: as for December 2016, we have two offsite servers: banks and minnie }}} == What is backed up? == The first step of the nightly backup process is to dump all databases to a SQL file that is stored in every members "backups" directory (e.g. /home/members/MEMBERNAME/sites/DOMAIN/backups). If you want to ensure that our backups are running - you can check the date on that file anytime you like. Next - the /root, /etc/, /home, /var/log, /usr/local, and /var/local/ directories are backed up to both the onsite and offsite backup servers. == Should I back up my own data? == Having said that... we always encourage our members to [wiki:member-backup do their own backups]. That's for a few reasons: * Our backups are designed primarily for disaster recovery (the entire machine goes down). We can provide file recovery for accidental deletions or other mistakes, but we may not be able to do so in a timely fashion. * No backup is fool proof. It's ''always'' a good idea for triple or quadruple redundancy. Only system administrators can [wiki:restore_from_backup restore data from a backup].