Not sure if this has been done in PHP, so I thought I'd post the idea
here and find out.

We have several linux servers running tape backup software.  So far,
most of the software we've tried either doesn't work consistently,
costs too much money or requires a thick client to manage remotely
(typically from a Windows workstation).

We've actually reverted back to using the good ole tar command and
people come to me when they need something restored.

So I was thinking:  why not create some PHP pages that provide basic
management of your tapebackup operations.  Key would be user friendly
restore operations.

All the basic operations can be categorized in a set of scripts,
modified for each admins needs.  For example, there could be scripts
for running the backup, retrieving the file list from the archive,
restoring files, etc.

The the PHP pages can call these scripts in response to user input on
a webpage, password protected of course.

In short, the PHP would work off the output of the tar command.  

I figured PHP would be good for this (instead of jsp) as it would not
require much more than the basic Linux Apache Server installation
found in just about every distro.

I have zero experience writing PHP (aside from hello world :), so I
thought I'd toss the idea out here.

If this has already been done, I apologize for wasting your time.

Thanks

PHP would work well I'd think but this has already been done (using
Perl) by Webmin (http://www.webmin.com), a browser-based system
management tool for Linux systems. I use it for a *basic* daily backup
(it uses DUMP) and it appears to work quite well.

I guess you could always 'roll your own' using PHP though...

Jason Friedland

Interesting idea Mark,

Considering that I know how to implement enterprise systems with BrightStor
and NetBackup DataCenter with ability to restore any file that was backed up
within 6 months in about 5 minutes, it might be an interesting challenge and
a relatively easy one to implement.

Any programming language capable of executing system commands and connecting
to databases can be used here.

There is another product you should consider, it's called Amanda.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amanda/

In its simplest form this is how I would do this concept with PHP and ADODB
(stifling any DB wars in the process :).

Exec a backup utility. Parse a backup utility's logs into the DB with a
current time stamp, current backup file name, backed up file's mtime,
current tape index number.

On restore, run a select, locate the record in my DB, instruct the backup
program of choice to restore it to either the original location or location
of choice for the user.

The real fun is to take something like tar or star, hack direct DB support
into it, and then have a commercial-strength product not much unlike that of
Computer Associates or Veritas offerings.

Leonid

Yeah, I took a look at that it seems too basic, at least for the
user's needs.  I suppose it could be expanded upon.

Thanks for the response!

Thank you for the response.  I like the approach.  The goal (for me)
is to produce something that can be managed via a web-browser, provide
user friendly file selection, backup and restore interfaces and works
so long as you can write scripts to produce the desired backup
results.

Amanda looks cool and I'll check it out, but from what I can tell, can
only be managed from another nix box.  I could be wrong (and usually
am :)

I've played with the Webmin tools, but they are not very intuitive for
the average user trying to perform a restore operation.

Thanks again for the post.

I'll let you know if I find time to work on this and post the results
back.