[DRBD-user] mounting low level device for remote backup

Michael Klatt lists.tcimk at olympus.net
Fri Jan 7 21:08:02 CET 2005

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


Hi,

I'm new to DRDB, and I think it's really a great solution for data 
redundancy/protection.  It was surprising easy to install (although 
there's a lot of out-dated documentation on the website that can be 
confusing to newbies).

I have a question.  From reading the mailing list, I know a lot of 
people are trying to mount a drbd resource as readonly on the Secondary, 
and all documentation says it's not possible (or, it shouldn't be done).

I think my need is a little different.  I want to turn off drbd on the 
secondary long enough to make a remote backup of the contents (using 
Bacula).  I've found that if I shut down drbd on the secondary, mount 
the "low level device" in readonly mode, I can perform a backup of the 
data just fine.  Then, when I umount the low level device and start drbd 
again, the system seems happy.

Is this a really bad idea?  I think I read somewhere that we shouldn't 
touch the low level device, but since I'm using readonly and the device 
isn't being updated by drbd, is this safe to do?  The reason I want to 
do this is to take the backup load off the primary.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Michael

(oh, and if someone has already answered this, please point me to the 
thread.  I went back a few months and didn't see anything that dealt 
with my particular situation)



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