Backing Up Your Gateman Server
Your Gateman system stores configuration information and also very important data; hence backing up this data is critical so that in the event of a hardware failure or natural disaster, your Gateman system can be recovered from backed up data in a very short while. For this reason your Gateman system includes an easily configurable disaster recovery system. Gateman also provides a manual backup facility for some data and this is also discussed here.
Disaster Recovery Basics
Every day at a specified time, your Gateman Server performs housekeeping activities and at the end of this activity, begins to transfer a snapshot of the data stored within your Gateman Server. The following must be considered to arrive at an appropriate backup strategy for your data:
Backup device – Choose between a local USB connected Hard Drive or eSATA drive, or a network connected drive e.g. NAS drive.
Backup Time – Decide when the backup operation will take place based on the backup device selected and the usage of your Gateman machine at various times.
Data to be Backed Up – Decide which information is to be backed up
The Backup Cycle – This defines the number of copies of backed up data. We will consider each of the above topics separately
Selecting the Backup Device
This subsection details some of the issues to be considered when selecting a suitable backup device.
Locally Connected Devices
Connecting a USB or eSATA hard drive allows has the following advantages:
The data transfer speed is suitable
It does not affect the network bandwidth
The devices are in-expensive and readily available Some limitations include:
Since the device is in the same area as the Gateman server, in the event of loss due to a fire or natural disaster, you may lose the backup device as well. To mitigate this risk one option is to ensure that the backup device is carried off site every evening or placed in a fire safe.
You need to secure this device as it may contain sensitive information Network Connected Devices
Network connected devices such as NAS drives have the following advantages:
Some limitations include:
The additional burden of network traffic – This can be overcome if a separate network interface is used for Backup
Selecting the Backup Time
This is determined by the kind of backup device selected:
If a local backup device is connected, the backup may be done at any time; in the event the device is to be removed at evening time to be carried away, the data transfer will take place when the backup device is connected.
If a network device is selected for backup, in the absence of a separate network interface to transfer the backed up data, it is best that the backup is done at around midnight when the requirement of the device is minimal.
Selecting the Data to be Backed Up
This depends on the nature of the data to be backed up. Consider the following:
Video data is large in volume and it is best if this data is not backed up but stored on the Gateman Server only. In the event that a historical record is the be maintained, store data only from the cameras that are required.
File data could be large hence you have the ability to choose the folders to be backed up. It may sometimes suffice that some data e.g. photographs and home video is backed up whereas movies and music are not
Email data is probably essential to be backed up. In an effort to keep the size of data small it is necessary to purge old emails.
Attendance data is essential though the volume of data is reasonably small
Gateman configuration – This size of this data is small
Selecting the Backup Cycle
Consider the following:
Gateman maintains only a single copy of Video and File data
Gateman allows you to configure a single, 2, 4 or 7 day backup cycle for the rest of the data. It stores all the data for each of the backups. Thus one needs to ensure that there is sufficient space on the backup device.
Configuring Your Gateman Server for Automatic Backup
To configure your automatic backup, select ‘Gateman Settings’ from the ‘Administration’ menu. From the window that opens, select the ‘Backup’ button to open the following window. Configure the backup settings as explained in the following screen shots.
Click Time to set the housekeeping start time
Click this box to transfer data to be backed up to the external device
If ‘Windows share’ is selected, specify the IP address and authentication details to get to the device. Then click Browse to
view the device and select a sub directory to backup the data to
If ‘Gateman USB Drive’ is selected, click the Browse Devices button to view the device attached to Gateman (see the picture below).
This is what will typically be visible with a single SATA disk and without any USB drive connected to Gateman. Notice these devices are mounted as ‘/’, Enter the required device e.g. /dev/sdb1, then
click ‘Select’ to mount the device. Next Click Browse and select a subdirectory to backup to Select the Backup cycle
Check the appropriate boxes to specify data to back up
This box lists the available folders. User home folders are identified by the _USER_ prefix. Select the appropriate folders (one at a time) and then click the ‘>>’ button
Holds folders to be backed up Holds cameras to be backed up
Backing up Camera Data
Because your camera data is voluminous, Gateman provides for appropriate backup mechanisms.
Gateman stores only a single set of picture data and provides methods to backup and delete data from the backup device as well.
Snapshots are available in the folder named ‘jpg’ and video streams are stored in the folder named ‘str’.
Within the jpg folder there are subfolders, one for each hour of each day for each camera. The folder is named as CAMERA_NAMEYYYYMMDDhh. Within a folder individual snapshots are named CAMERA_NAMEYYYYMMDDhhmmssxxx. Where hhmmss represents the exact time in hh:mm:ss 24 hour format, and xxx the millisecond.
Within the str folder there are subfolders one for each day for each camera. The folder is named as CAMERA_NAME_YYYYMMDD. Within a folder, there are a number of 1 minute video streams stored which are named CAMERA_NAME_YYYYMMDDhhmm.xxx where xxx is the appropriate file extension e.g. mp4, asf, etc.
You can select the cameras that are to be backed up
The ‘Transfer Pictures’ drop list allows you to select how far many days back Gateman should go to store backed up camera data, in the event the Backup device was unavailable for one or more days.
Delete after allows you to automatically delete picture data on the Backup Device after the number of days defined.
Backing up File Server Data
File Server data can be extremely large. Hence:
Only a single copy of this data is stored
You can select the folders to be backed up
User home folders are prefixed with the name _USER_ for easy identification. The number of days (between
1 and 30), before deleting data from the backup device
Specifies the number of days of picture data to transfer at a single session, in the event the backup device was unable for a previous day(s)
This box lists the available cameras. Select the appropriate cameras (one at a time) and then click the ‘>>’ button
Tips
1. Reports are available to advise if the backup operation is successful. Please see the relevant document to see how to configure automatic reports.
2. If an external USB device is selected as a backup device, this device may also be mounted as an ‘Auxiliary Folder’ within the File Server and periodically browsed via Gateman to check that the data on the drive
The Backup Folder Structure
Within a single day, data is arranged in sub-folders
Picture (and file) data is stored separately
A separate sub-folder holds each user’s email
The mail subfolder A separate
folder for each day of the backup cycle
Manual Backup
Your Gateman system allows the user to manually back up some of the data. To access this screen select the ‘Housekeeping -> Backup’ option from the ‘Administration’ menu.
This section provides you with information on the various configuration files:
The Server Database – A file with a ‘.srv’ extension which holds your Gateman device configuration and includes information on the devices that are integrated with your Gateman server.
Client Configuration – A file with a ‘.cli’ extension which hold the Client Applet graphics screen information including the background pictures and icon animation
Mobile Configuration – A file with a ‘.phn’ extension which holds the Mobile HTML page layout and animation information.
User Info – A file with a ‘.usr’ extension that holds all the user details including their permissions within Gateman.
Network Settings – A file with a ‘.net’ extension that holds Gateman’s firewall and proxy server configuration.
Attendance – A file with a ‘.att’ extension that holds all the attendance information for the system.
My Gateman Help – A file with the name mygatemanhelp.tar.gz that holds your own html help for this user.
My Website – A file with the name ‘mywebsite.tar.gz’ that holds html pages for the website on this Gateman server.
