Considering the switch... [Archive]

bluesin

02-27-2005, 12:15 PM

timryberg

02-27-2005, 01:33 PM

Have reviewed your site in detail and have some questions about the product.

1. Can I import from ensim?

I currently have ensim and recently had a problem while attempting to upgrade mysql to a more current version. I managed to screw up the upgrade without knowing it (broke php connections to mysql) and because ensim has this horrible method of updating sites via maintenance settings, when I ran the process I completely killed ensim because of the bad mysql install.

Ensim is really really integrated into the whole management of the server much more than I really am comfortable with, not to mention their support sucks on their forums.

I have purchased a clean server with no control panel on it and am planning on moving all of my sites off of ensim as soon as I can, so being able to automate this process somewhat with your control panel would be a great plus, but not mandatory as I can just rebuild the sites for the most part.

I'll leave this for someone from Nexcess. I know 1.9 has a cPanel importer. Not sure if a enesim one is in the works or not.

I think you will like making the switch. Having worked with InterWorx for over a year now, I can say it is DEFFINITELY cleaner than any of the other CP's out there I tried. It does lack some features, but I think the cleander interface is well worth it. (and they are adding new features all the time)

2. How integrated is Interworx?

From question 1, how likely am I to break interworx if I upgrade and install software? If I want to upgrade mysql for instance, or php, or perl, or anything else for that matter how do these upgrades get propagated to the sites?

I use webmin for most of my server management tasks, so I don't want to conflict with interworx while doing so.

Your system appears to be much much cleaner in its method of maintaining the server and itself than ensim ever thought of being so the integration is probably not as big of an issue with you as it is with ensim.

I've pretty much decided on getting interworx, but just want to know what's ahead of me before I commit.

Thanks!

InterWorx uses it's own instances of httpd, mysql, php so you don't need to worry about breaking those. In general upgrading isn't going to be a problem, but you will need to use tinydns instead of bind and qmail instead of sendmail or postfix and proftpd is the ftp server. Trying to replace one of them is asking for trouble ;-)

Tim

bluesin

02-27-2005, 02:13 PM

I agree with you on the clean usable interface. Its more important to me than addons and or lots of bells and whistles or features that are not really used...

I like the fact that this product uses Horde and Fileman also.

InterWorx uses it's own instances of httpd, mysql, php so you don't need to worry about breaking those.

These are outside of the normal mysql server and php that the sites use?

Its also intersting to me that there is not much in the way of bug/problem reports on these forums, that's pretty much all there is at ensim's site...

timryberg

02-27-2005, 03:56 PM

I agree with you on the clean usable interface. Its more important to me than addons and or lots of bells and whistles or features that are not really used...

agreed :-)

You will also find that they are very receptive to user feature requests.

I like the fact that this product uses Horde and Fileman also.

These are outside of the normal mysql server and php that the sites use?

That is corect they are separate installs inside the /home/interworx directory on the server. Even if you do something like upgrade to PHP 5 (which a lot of php scripts don't work on) it won't interfere with InterWorx since it still uses 4.x

Its also intersting to me that there is not much in the way of bug/problem reports on these forums, that's pretty much all there is at ensim's site...

Part of that is the fact that the software hasn't been around as long, but it also has to do with the fact that the developers work hard to iron out the bugs before it becomes a final release. They test it, then they usually have a couple others test it, and then for a big revision like this one they had a release candidate.

It also helps that they use software (e.g. tinydns, qmail) that is generally considered more stable and secure than the competition.

If it's not too premature, welcome to the InterWorx users' "family" :-)

bluesin

02-27-2005, 05:51 PM

Yep, as I said, I've pretty much made up my mind.

After the problem I had with Ensim, which as I said I caused by screwing up the install of mysql and the Ensim product made much worse when I put it into maintenance mode, I got so irritated that I purchased a new server that day from EV1.

But if I had not had the problem I would have remained hostage to Ensim, so Iguess there is a silver lining on this particular cloud as I would have never begun to search for competing products, of course I already knew about plesk and cpanel.

My quandry was whether or not I was just going to do it all in webmin with the virtualmin module, but I started thinking that I'd rather use a company with a support system in place and a paid for product that gets me that support. Heck at $50 bucks minimum for a support ticket with Ensim, its a no brainer to just buy the annual package from InterWorx and be done with it.

And for the life of me I still can't figure out what ensim had to do to all of my sites after I upgraded mysql, there is just too much dark and mysterious stuff going on with that produce for me to be comfortable. I'm pretty sure that if it was not packaged up with servers at EV1 and elsewhere they would not sell any copies of it. And certainly a user perusing the forums at Ensim would not come away very impressed, heck a search of the word "problem" on their forums turns up 500 or more threads:>).

Heck, they only have one moderator that attempts to answer any support problems on the forums and he won't pursue any actual discussion or attempts to assist in getting the problem resolved, meaning his responses are limited to just answering your questions in as short of a response as possible. And there was not one single other poster on their forum that even attempted to help either which I thought was pretty wierd. This guy kept referring to the instructions and did I not follow the instructions, heck I searched all over and could not find the instructions, and he never linked to them until I asked him if I needed a "secret decoder ring" to find them and there they were burried in the release notes of all places. And while I was going through all of this, another poster asked specifically where he could find them and his post went unanswered until I responded to him after I finally beat it out of them...

Little bit of venting there, but as I said, if it had not happened I'd still be an ensim slave...

CMI

02-27-2005, 06:07 PM

Glad I never used Ensim :) The only other things I've used are Webmin and cPanel. I just plain don't like cPanel.

timryberg

02-27-2005, 06:14 PM

<begin sarchasm>Sounds like you've had a lot of fun. </sarchasm>

I talked to one of the developers and he says an Enesim importer is something talked about but not (yet) started.

If you're looking for a data center I recommend taking a look at sagonet.com They've been great to me and a lot of other people.

InterWorx does not have a lot of documentation yet, but what what there are can be found on the Support link above. Plans are in place to dramatically increase them in the near future.

If you ever have any questions, post them here and someone (an InterWorx developer or one of the rest of us) will respond. Sago also has an InterWors forum.

Have a goo day

Tim

bluesin

02-27-2005, 07:01 PM

Actually, EV1 has been pretty dang good at everything aside from the selection of control panel software.

I've had great support from them, but if anything ever turns then I certainly won't waste time switching.

On the ensim import, I would certainly recommend it, importing competing control panels would be very high on my priority for development of InterWorx if I was them.

I would plan on having this set up by the time I post my "thank you ensim" post on ensims forums thanking them for all of their problems they caused me and forcing me to find InterWorx.

In addition, InterWorx needs to do something about getting high placement on the search engines, I would have never found them on the search engines. Thank goodness for hotscripts.com. Search terms (web hosting control panel software).

CMI, so you don't like the "industry's leading control panel". :>)

I think Cpanel and Ensim and Plesk all have a bad case of bloatware...

Is scheduled backups on the development list?

timryberg

02-27-2005, 07:18 PM

They already have a cPanel import in the new 1.9 and I suspect the others are on the way.

As for advertizing, it's something they are working on. They are sponsors for HostinCon2005 and have ads in a couple industry magazines.

bluesin

02-27-2005, 07:29 PM

Is scheduled backups on the development list?

Or is it just disabled on the demo?

bluesin

02-27-2005, 07:35 PM

Also, the only piece of software that I've got installed on this new server that comes with InterWorx is proftpd, do I need to uninstall it before installing InterWorx?

Does it install those in the default directories?

I plan on running the script install...

IWorx-Socheat

02-27-2005, 07:44 PM

Bluesin,

The only thing preventing us from starting work on the Ensim converter is an actual Ensim backup to test with. :) So if you're willing to be a beta tester, please create a full backup of your Ensim managed site and submit a trouble ticket at:

https://secure.interworx.info/support/helpdesk/

with information on how we can access the backup file.

Thanks,
Socheat

bluesin

02-27-2005, 07:52 PM

No problem...

Do I actually have to uninstall bind? Or can I just set it up to not start?

bluesin

02-27-2005, 08:39 PM

Are they important?

Cannot find a package matching yum-conf
No actions to take
InterWorx-CP needs to remove some packages that may conflict
The following packages will be removed (if they exist)
STATUS: - bind
STATUS: - redhat-config-bind
STATUS: - sendmail
STATUS: - postfix
STATUS: - exim
STATUS: - mutt
STATUS: - fetchmail
STATUS: - redhat-lsb
STATUS: - mdadm
Is this ok? (Y/n): y
STATUS: Removing conflicting packages
error: package bind is not installed
error: package redhat-config-bind is not installed
error: package sendmail is not installed
error: package exim is not installed
warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf saved as /etc/postfix/main.cf.rpmsave
STATUS: Conflict resolution complete
STATUS: Installing MySQL server
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: DAG - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Server: InterWorx-CP - Generic
Server: InterWorx-CP - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Cannot find a package matching mysql
Cannot find a package matching mysql-server
Cannot find a package matching mysql-devel
No actions to take
mysqld: unrecognized service
error reading information on service mysqld: No such file or directory
STATUS: Installing the Apache webserver
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: DAG - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Server: InterWorx-CP - Generic
Server: InterWorx-CP - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Cannot find a package matching httpd
Cannot find a package matching httpd-devel
mod_ssl is installed and is the latest version.
No actions to take
httpd: unrecognized service
error reading information on service httpd: No such file or directory
STATUS: Performing a YUM update to bring the system up to date
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: DAG - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Server: InterWorx-CP - Generic
Server: InterWorx-CP - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Resolving dependencies
......Unable to satisfy dependencies
Package webalizer needs gd-devel, this is not available.
STATUS: Installing InterWorx-CP
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: DAG - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Server: InterWorx-CP - Generic
Server: InterWorx-CP - RedHat Enterprise 3ES
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Resolving dependencies
..conflict between djbdns and caching-nameserver
STATUS: Rebuilding system disk quotas
STATUS: (ignore errors regarding: 'Old file not found')
quotacheck: Scanning /dev/hda3 [/] done
quotacheck: Checked 8286 directories and 145938 files
quotacheck: Old file not found.
quotacheck: Old file not found.
mount: can't find /home in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
quotacheck: Mountpoint (or device) /home not found.
quotacheck: Can't find filesystem to check or filesystem not mounted with quota option.

STATUS: Setting server time / syncing BIOS
27 Feb 20:33:12 ntpdate[26567]: step time server 18.72.0.3 offset -4071.832706 sec
Starting ntpd: [ OK ]
-=-=-=-=-= ALL DONE! THANK YOU! FOR USING InterWorx-CP =-=-=-=-=-

Type: 'iworx-cp-install.sh :D' to send the InterWorx Team
your distro & operating system name if you like

(It makes them happy)

Also, check out http://interworx.info for news, updates
and of course help!

-=-=-=-=-= ALL DONE! THANK YOU! FOR USING InterWorx-CP =-=-=-=-=-

[root@server2 root]# sh iworx-cp-install.sh :D
iworx-cp-install.sh: line 161: status_print: command not found
/usr/sbin/sendmail: No such file or directory
[root@server2 root]#

bluesin

02-27-2005, 08:52 PM

In addition, where is it? There is no home/interworx directory...

Doing a locate interworx or locate iworx finds nothing on the system...

IWorx-Paul

02-27-2005, 09:05 PM

Could you please open a support ticket here:
https://secure.interworx.info/support/helpdesk/

Some of those errors need to be dealt with, and it'd be best if we could get remote access to the server.

Thanks,

Paul

bluesin

02-27-2005, 09:53 PM

Paul, done, In addition I put the link in that ticket to the ensim backup file...

Thanks!

pascal

03-04-2005, 10:25 AM

So welcome in the iworx world :)

About the schedule backups :
Yet interworx CP does not allow you to schedule a backup, but You may test to create an interworx-cp backup by using a cron job with this command :

/home/interworx/bin/php -c /home/interworx/etc backup.php --domain=domain.tld --siteworx

(not sure it works)

It should allow you to do a full siteworx account backup for the domain.tld (--domain=thedomainehere.tld)

I don't know a way to create a full backup of all siteworx account in one shot and even if I knew it I wouldn't do it, as the backup process (gzip) take a lot of cpu usage, so it really better to not backup all siteworx account in one shot :)

Pascal

timryberg

03-04-2005, 07:02 PM

Socheat told me that a backup COULD be CRONed, and this looks a lot like the command he had me run when I beta tested fromthem several months ago. I didn't have to specify the config file though.

Socheat, care to chime in here and clairify?

pascal

03-05-2005, 02:50 AM

I also used it several months ago but don't remember the exact command :\

This command is what there is in "ps -axf" when you launch a full siteworx backup

So Paul , Socheat ?

Pascal

IWorx-Socheat

03-05-2005, 01:42 PM

Technically, both of you are correct (Tim and Pascal).

The command I gave Tim was "./backup.pex --domain=domain.tld --siteworx" This pex file does a few things, one of which sets the php config file. What we had in mind was for people to run the backup.pex file in a cronjob, but if you wanted to show all the details, Pascal's command would work too.

pascal

03-05-2005, 04:23 PM

My solution should but it doesn't :-p

/home/interworx/bin/php -c /home/interworx/etc backup.php --domain=domain.tld --siteworx

doesn't work !!!

but "/home/interworx/bin/backup.pex --domain=carat-hosting.com --siteworx" works well

Thanks Socheat

pascal

03-05-2005, 04:51 PM

Siteworx users can't create a cron job (within siteworx cron job option) with this line :

/home/interworx/bin/backup.pex --domain=carat-hosting.com --siteworx

There is a permission pbm :

/bin/sh: line 1: /home/interworx/bin/backup.pex: Permission denied

here is the cron job I created under the siteworx account carathos :

30 23 * * * /home/interworx/bin/backup.pex --domain=carat-hosting.com --siteworx

Pascal

timryberg

03-06-2005, 12:42 PM

Siteworx users can't create a cron job (within siteworx cron job option) with this line :

There is a permission pbm :

here is the cron job I created under the siteworx account carathos :

Pascal

I had to su - iworx when I did this. But Socheat has since told me that it was no longer necessary and root could do it too.

How about creating a ssh script and having the the webmaster put in a cron as the root user.

Or, here's a feature request: set it up so that NodeWorx can also do cron jobs (run as the iworx user).

I'm going to test this and see if it works for me :-)

pascal

03-08-2005, 11:38 AM

yes tim, I know it works under iworx user but the I thought it may work under siteworx users as told by socheat

What we had in mind was for people to run the backup.pex file in a cronjob

About your advise

How about creating a ssh script and having the the webmaster put in a cron as the root user.

Yep, but I have a lot of client :\
So doing this meant : create a different SSH script by domain and send to ALL my client the link of the their corresponding script :\

Much better if the backup process could be automaticly set as a cron job by sireworx accounts themself

Pascal

bluesin

03-08-2005, 01:25 PM

timryberg

03-08-2005, 10:21 PM

I've been out of town for a while.

I actually prefer webmins backup program because of its automation capability, but I have a question, if I use it, what all has to be backed up to restore nodeworx and siteworx?

I take full database and site backups every night, I also use webmin to back up all config files such as apache, is there anything else I would be missing?

Be carefull using Webmin on an InterWorx server, it's easy to break something. Webmin's backup may back up the basics of what the server needs to get it running, but InterWorx will not recognize it if you have to restore from it. InterWorx stores info about each SiteWorx account in a database which Webmin would not know to back up.

timryberg

03-08-2005, 10:23 PM

Much better if the backup process could be automaticly set as a cron job by sireworx accounts themself

Does the siteworx user have access to all of the files it would need to back up?

IWorx-Socheat

03-09-2005, 07:50 AM

After I took a look at Webmin, Tim is correct. There are many settings in the Interworx internal DB's that Webmin may not backup. Even if you did tell Webmin to backup the Interworx db's, it wouldn't be as simple as restoring them. The current siteworx backups contain an ini file that store account related information to direct the restore process. Without this information, it would be a very long and tedious manual restore process, even if you had all the right data.

We've recently come up with a good solution to automating SiteWorx backups, and this feature will be added very soon. :)

IWorx-Socheat

03-09-2005, 07:52 AM

Does the siteworx user have access to all of the files it would need to back up?

I realize now that backup.pex needs to run as the iworx user. A detail I forgot to consider, which prevents SiteWorx users from adding it to their crontab. But, as I said in my previous post, we've come up with a solution and will be coding it soon.

Justec

03-09-2005, 11:01 AM

cdemain

03-09-2005, 02:13 PM

Is there a way to direct these backups to a 2nd hard drive automatically instead of to the /home/siteworx folder?

I guess I could just run a script that scanned all the home folder and then moved the back files to the 2nd drive, but would be much nicer to do it in one shot.

Here's how I do my backups:
(/dev/hdc1 is my secondary drive, mounted at /mnt/backup)

[/etc/cron.daily/backup, which is a symbolic link to my backup script /usr/local/sbin/backups.sh]

#!/bin/bash

rsync -av /etc /mnt/backup
rsync -av /home /mnt/backup
rsync -av /service /mnt/backup
rsync -av /var /mnt/backup

This backs up everything. All the logs, all the configurations, all the email, site data. Because it's rsync, it only copies the files which are new or changed. So I'm not doing huge copies every night, just "incremental" (okay, pseudo-incremental).

Justec

03-09-2005, 02:27 PM

Here's how I do my backups:
(/dev/hdc1 is my secondary drive, mounted at /mnt/backup)

[/etc/cron.daily/backup, which is a symbolic link to my backup script /usr/local/sbin/backups.sh]

#!/bin/bash

rsync -av /etc /mnt/backup
rsync -av /home /mnt/backup
rsync -av /service /mnt/backup
rsync -av /var /mnt/backup

This backs up everything. All the logs, all the configurations, all the email, site data. Because it's rsync, it only copies the files which are new or changed. So I'm not doing huge copies every night, just "incremental" (okay, pseudo-incremental).

I am currently doing something similar. My Rsync is a little different as I include the --delete which removes files from the backup which are no longer on the disc, but I do keep 10 days worth of seperate backups.

Here is one of the lines from my script:
rsync -ax --delete /home/ /backup/0/home

All of this is great if you need to recover a file here or database there, but if you have a dead hard drive you will have to recreate all the siteworx accounts again (emails, etc.) and then copy the data back.

I basically want to do both, have the incremental file backup and also have SiteWorx backups. I could do the SiteWorx once a week and would be used to restore the accounts since once they are setup they shouldn't change too much. Then I'll have the daily file backup to restore files to the latest ones if needed.

Then I also want to create another cron to SSH-rsync the files to a remote linux box for offsite storage.

My question is still using the command line InterWorx backup feature, is it possible to set the backup destination directory?

I would try to figure it out myself, but the backup.php (which is run by backup.pex) is protected (as it should be :D ) so I don't know what the other options are. Maybe you guys (Chris, Paul) could add a --help to some of the command line PEX (PHP) files to help us out :confused:

Justec

03-09-2005, 02:54 PM

Now that I thought about it more, the rsync may be enough.

If you get the /home directory this include the /home/interworx directory which contains all the InterWorx setup info (database, config files, etc). Now this wouldn't be very useful if you need to restore a single account it should work in the "doom's day" situation.

I am really just guessing here so I would like to here from someone from InterWorx, but it does make sense (although I'm sure I have missed something)

bluesin

03-09-2005, 03:05 PM

Thanks everyone, this is exactly the type of info I need. I can wait on a scheduled backup, I manage everything on my sites from top down and am not available to log into the system each and every day to backup via a mouseclick, thus the need for a scheduled one. I ended up using webmin to back up the data because ensim's backup program failed most of the time. In addition they write out a file for each backup each day which meant that pretty soon if I did not clean them up very often I had hundreds of files out there pretty quickly.

Thus any solution that avoids that would be nice. Of course any solution that makes work avoidance by me easier is always nice, but I digress.

I'm just beginning the migration process, sort of stalling to see if an ensim script finds its way into my beta testing hands providing for a means for that work avoidance thingy.

bluesin

03-09-2005, 04:00 PM

Justec...

If that's the case, I could use webmin to just backup everything at /home and use webmin to restore a single site if needed by restoring /home/sitename.

I'm guessing that a problem might arise if something about the config of the site that interworx keeps up with changes. In addition, what about sql databases, etc? Should I backup /home/interworx a few times a day for safekeeping?

I just tested that with webmin and it only dumped 129 meg and took less than 15 seconds, of course this is on an empty system with only one site on it right now, but taking a backup like that 4 times a day is certainly in the picture.

Justec

03-09-2005, 04:32 PM

Justec...

If that's the case, I could use webmin to just backup everything at /home and use webmin to restore a single site if needed by restoring /home/sitename.

I've never used webmin, so I dont know how that works. But InterWorx keeps a lot of information in its own Mysql database (and instance of MySQL seperate from where all the SiteWorx user database are stored).

What I was thinking is if you backup the the entire /home directory (which is something every backup should do) you will get a copy of the InterWorx config and database which may be able to restore the SiteWorx accounts to a new hard drive. This would NOT give you the ability to restore one though, it would be all or none kind of thing.

And even then, everything I've said above may not even work. I have never tried that so I can not say if that would work or not, just trying to throw out ideas

bluesin

03-09-2005, 06:40 PM

webmin will backup the directory /home to a specified file name. You can specify level of dumps with 0 being a full backup, 1 new or changed since a previous dump level etc, all the way up to 9. This allows for incremental backups at any interval really.

I take two backups to two different drives, a full backup once a week and a level one dump daily at midnight, all to the same file name, meaning that there is always only one backup file with a mirror on another drive. When you want to restore you just specify the backup filename, the directory or file you want to restore and it takes care of the rest.

Thus I was thinking that if I backed up the /home directory each night, this would capture everything for the interworx and all of the sites, and if I backed up the /home/interworx directory say 4 times a day I could keep up with any changes to interworx itself to within 6 hours.

I'm wondering if it'll work also, one of the important considerations is sql data...

timryberg

03-09-2005, 08:33 PM

timryberg

03-09-2005, 08:35 PM

IWorx-Socheat

03-10-2005, 07:22 AM

My question is still using the command line InterWorx backup feature, is it possible to set the backup destination directory?

I would try to figure it out myself, but the backup.php (which is run by backup.pex) is protected (as it should be :D ) so I don't know what the other options are. Maybe you guys (Chris, Paul) could add a --help to some of the command line PEX (PHP) files to help us out :confused:

When you add "--siteworx" to the backup.pex param list, that automatically sets the filename to a standard filename, <domain>[_backup-type]_<timestamp>.tar.gz, and a standard location, /home/<uniqname>/backups. things in <> are required, [] are optional. _backup-type indicates what type of partial backup was made, and is omitted on a full backup.

However, if you replace --siteworx with --file=<path/and/filename.tar.gz> you can specify any filename and location you want. However, if you do not place this file in /home/<uniqname>/backups, it won't show up in the NodeWorx/SiteWorx backup management interface.

We can add a --help. :)

It will not work, you will have your basic web and email files, but you will miss your database files located here /var/lib/mysql and your httpd configuration files located here /etc/httpd and below (you need EVERYTHING IN /etc/httpd/conf.d/ ).

In addition you may have file permission problems during restore. InterWorx has very specific file permissions that it needs in order to work. Certain files need to be owned by the individual siteworx users, some by iworx, and some by root (and possibly httpd, I don't recall exactly).-- I know I've screwed them up before ;-) )

This is correct. Even if you backed up all that information, it won't be easy to restore all of NodeWorx (though obviously easier if you did manage to have *all* backed up somewhere).

As for permissions, there are two scripts that can fix most of them (but not all), and must be run as root: cvspermsfix.pex and varpermsfix.pex.

cvspermsfix.pex has no additional parameters, and will fix all the permissions in the Interworx install directory.

varpermsfix.pex has one paramater --siteworx=<domainname.com>, and will set all the var directory permissions of the account belonging to domainname.com back to the defaults. Specifically, everything in /home/<uniqname>/var/. This does *not* touch web data, since those can be set to anything you want, so we wouldn't even know what to set them to.

bluesin

03-10-2005, 07:44 AM

Most of my stuff is database driven and I back up my mysql databases hourly. The pressing need is to be able to restore everything as is to a single point in time and then update dynamic data such as database data to within the hour if possible.

Webmins restore routines don't mess with permissions at all, the file will be replaced as they were, permissions intact, restoring is always messy to some degree no matter what you use to do it, the desire it to minimize it as much as possible.

The onus is on me to make sure I get everything, which is what this discussion is about, I use webmin because Its capabilities are very sophisticated, I'm very familiar with the product and because it works, something that could not be said about Ensim at all. I do realize that I am taking a chance by using it which is the reason for hashing this out, however it'll only be until a better method comes about for doing it through Interworx.

As you can probably tell, backups are one of the most important things on my list, just my long experience in IT playing itself out:>)

I'm inpressed with the support over here, glad I'm making the switch!

cdemain

03-10-2005, 09:18 AM

It will not work, you will have your basic web and email files, but you will miss your database files located here /var/lib/mysql and your httpd configuration files located here /etc/httpd and below (you need EVERYTHING IN /etc/httpd/conf.d/ ).

In addition you may have file permission problems during restore. InterWorx has very specific file permissions that it needs in order to work. Certain files need to be owned by the individual siteworx users, some by iworx, and some by root (and possibly httpd, I don't recall exactly).-- I know I've screwed them up before ;-) )

This is why I backup what I do on my box. I'm concerned mostly about the DoomsDay event. I can re-create a domain or two, and recover files and email during an hour's outage. However, if the server dies, I want hdc to have a complete backup for the event of a bare-metal reinstall to hda.

/etc/ is backed up because it contains server configs, including the entire httpd/ config tree.
/var/ is backed up because it has logs, qmail configs, dbases, etc.
/home/ is backed up for user mail and site files, as well as iworx specific data
/service/ is for various djb software junk.

the -a option in rsync is a shortcut for a huge amount of options (equivalent to -rlptgoD) which, among other things, ensures that permissions are preserved (which will match new UIDs since /etc/passwd is backed up).

Incidentally, since interworx doesn't recognize more than one disk, the -x option isn't necessary. I hadn't thought about the --delete option, but I think I'll add it to mine; however, you should consider using --delete-after instead, since by default rsync deletes files before transferring. Also, -v is annoying in the logwatch reports. This leaves me with:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -a --delete-after /etc /mnt/backup
rsync -a --delete-after /home /mnt/backup
rsync -a --delete-after /service /mnt/backup
rsync -a --delete-after /var /mnt/backup

Can anyone from Interworx comment on whether I'm missing anything in my backups? I know that there's no click-a-button-restore from my method, but I should be able to rebuild it, databases and all.

timryberg

03-10-2005, 06:08 PM

Webmins restore routines don't mess with permissions at all, the file will be replaced as they were, permissions intact, restoring is always messy to some degree no matter what you use to do it, the desire it to minimize it as much as possible.

Not sure if you've tested InterWorx's restore yet, but it isn't messay at all. It's literally "one click" if the restore file is in the right place.

Socheat, can that shell command be set up to just back up databases?

bluesin

03-10-2005, 07:22 PM

Yea, I'm more referring to a situation of a hd failure or a scenario where I had a rootkit infect the server and had to trash it .

I guess I should have qualified that, in the scenario of the rootkit, once the rootkit was discovered, they give you a small amount ot time before you get to wake up with a clean server with your old drive accessable for a period of time, as I suspect anyone like EV1 would do.

So my process is to login to the new server, wget the webmin rpm, install it, login to webmin and access the restore file and tell it to restore /home from last nights dump then restore all the config files, then restore live database data from the latest hourly dump, etc.

Before I decided to make the switch EV1 would have set me up with a server with Ensim on it already, which is what happend last time and when I found out about how bad their backup/restore process was as it literally took me 2.5 days to fully recover, thus I went the webmin route and tested restoring to a new server and the entire process took me less than two hours from the time the new server was handed to me.

I have not tested Interworx's restore yet, but it looks like I'd have to have a method of accessing the system. Accessing the secondary mounted drive (FWIW, I now have a mirror drive I backup to), navigatingto the domain name, identifying the file name of the latest backup and then typing all of that into the restore box, restoring the site and then moving on to the next one.

And that's after I've gone through the non-painless process of reinstalling Interworx, of course Interworx is going to have to be reinstalled anyway, thus I'm assuming that I'd install it first after webmin anyway, then restore /home, but I'm actually unsure of the process.

the rootkit was nasty, really upset my clients that I one got infected with one and two that it took me so long to recover, something that I guaranteed then would never happen again.

It was my fault, I had left an easy crack of a password on the server along with root login, thus I got what I deserved. Me and whoever it was were actually attempting to lock each other out for a time, I won because I had webmin and was able to quickly install a firewall with only the webmin port open, this allowed me to find out where the rk was, this is important because you want to insure you don't restore it, and 2 take some last minute backups before I trashed the server.

I'd rather deal with a HD failure personally:>)

So based on this what would be the process with Interworx, if we were to awaken to a brand new server starting from scratch?

timryberg

03-10-2005, 07:48 PM

Yea, I'm more referring to a situation of a hd failure or a scenario where I had a rootkit infect the server and had to trash it .

It's still easier to do this with InterWorx ;-)

I guess I should have qualified that, in the scenario of the rootkit, once the rootkit was discovered, they give you a small amount ot time before you get to wake up with a clean server with your old drive accessable for a period of time, as I suspect anyone like EV1 would do.

So my process is to login to the new server, wget the webmin rpm, install it, login to webmin and access the restore file and tell it to restore /home from last nights dump then restore all the config files, then restore live database data from the latest hourly dump, etc.

This is how you would do it with IntrWorx:

1. Get a new server and have a fresh OS installed onthe new hard drive and hav the old one slaved on
2. Install InterWorx (not super hard -- wget the install script and fillow the prompts installing your liscence when prompted) The most imortant thing here is to have a new fresh "stock" OS install without apache or any of the other stuff (InterWorx installs it's own RPM's) to minimize conflicts.
3. Log Into NodeWorx
4. Configure the DNS server settings NodeWorx => Server Settings (ns1 and ns2.whatever)
5. Go to NodeWorx => Restore
6. Point the restore to your backup file on the server's file system and let it do it's work. It really is "one click"

Before I decided to make the switch EV1 would have set me up with a server with Ensim on it already, which is what happend last time and when I found out about how bad their backup/restore process was as it literally took me 2.5 days to fully recover, thus I went the webmin route and tested restoring to a new server and the entire process took me less than two hours from the time the new server was handed to me.

I have not tested Interworx's restore yet, but it looks like I'd have to have a method of accessing the system. Accessing the secondary mounted drive (FWIW, I now have a mirror drive I backup to), navigatingto the domain name, identifying the file name of the latest backup and then typing all of that into the restore box, restoring the site and then moving on to the next one.

And that's after I've gone through the non-painless process of reinstalling Interworx, of course Interworx is going to have to be reinstalled anyway, thus I'm assuming that I'd install it first after webmin anyway, then restore /home, but I'm actually unsure of the process.

Anything you restore from the shell or Webmin has the possibility of NOT being recognized by InterWors and you'd end up making a lot bigger mess.

One thing I've learned about this software ofer the last year or so from my own experience and that of others I've talked to is that it's a lot easier in the long run to work with InterWors than against it.

the rootkit was nasty, really upset my clients that I one got infected with one and two that it took me so long to recover, something that I guaranteed then would never happen again.

It was my fault, I had left an easy crack of a password on the server along with root login, thus I got what I deserved. Me and whoever it was were actually attempting to lock each other out for a time, I won because I had webmin and was able to quickly install a firewall with only the webmin port open, this allowed me to find out where the rk was, this is important because you want to insure you don't restore it, and 2 take some last minute backups before I trashed the server.

I'd rather deal with a HD failure personally:>)

So based on this what would be the process with Interworx, if we were to awaken to a brand new server starting from scratch?

Ultumately it's up to you how you do this, but I think you are making things harder on yourself using Webmin.

*shrug* to each his own.

Tim

Justec

03-10-2005, 09:37 PM

I'd like to try different things like just restoring the InterWorx mysql database files which should restore all the siteworx settings since they are stored in the interworx database.

Is there any "testing" (something free ;) ) version of InterWorx available?

Maybe limited somehow, but enough to test different things on a test server?

IWorx-Socheat

03-10-2005, 10:39 PM

Not sure if you've tested InterWorx's restore yet, but it isn't messay at all. It's literally "one click" if the restore file is in the right place.

Socheat, can that shell command be set up to just back up databases?

Here's the "--help" of backup.pex

Optional:
--web (backup web files)

--mail (backup email files)

--databases (backup databases)

--all (backup everything in /home/uniqname. default if previous 3 are all omitted)

--email (email to send a "Done!" email to)

Required:
--domain (domain to backup)

--file (set the path and filename of the backup file. however, this will change in a future release to just setting the path, and the backup filename will always be autogenerated by the script to maintain consistency)

--siteworx (set the path and filename to the default locations and filename template)

Only --file OR --siteworx needs to be supplied, since they obviously achieve the same result.

bluesin

03-11-2005, 01:48 PM

Were just hashing it out that's all, I've yet to implement anything yet.

First item, is that on an Red Hat enterprise system the install of Interworx is somewhat more than just the clean system and running the install script, there are some bundling issues aparently with the redhat rpms.

However I fully anticipate that after the server is installed the second step in the process is a ticket to Interworx to install the product on the server.

In the scenario using Interworx, I'd be restoring anywhere between 30 and 50 sites on a server depending on the server configuration, this is 30-50 restores vs 1 with webmin. It is also 30-50 backups per day vs 1 with webmin, not to mention that I take full backups of database data hourly, which is one backup and one restore to get all of it.

However, I'd prefer to use Interworx, given some enhancements to their process, 1. scheduled backups, and 2. The ability to dump all the sites at once via the control panel as well as restore all of them at once or one at a time from this one dump file. I never had have much need myself for a dated/timed backup file, never really had the need to restore anything except from the latest backup and for most of my sites recovering their database data to within the hour is much more important than anything else.

My SLA's with my customers state that I'll restore the site to the latest nightly backup and I'll restore the database data to within an hour of the failure.

Boy did I miss on that with the rootkit failure:>)

pascal

03-11-2005, 02:03 PM

Here's the "--help" of backup.pex

Optional:
--web (backup web files)

--mail (backup email files)

--databases (backup databases)

--all (backup everything in /home/uniqname. default if previous 3 are all omitted)

--email (email to send a "Done!" email to)

Required:
--domain (domain to backup)

--file (set the path and filename of the backup file. however, this will change in a future release to just setting the path, and the backup filename will always be autogenerated by the script to maintain consistency)

--siteworx (set the path and filename to the default locations and filename template)

Only --file OR --siteworx needs to be supplied, since they obviously achieve the same result.

Yes BUT siteworx users can't use it in a cron job. The cron has to be set for user iworx :-p

Any solutions ?

======
Bleusin :
======

A comment :
if you want to backup all your siteworx accounts in one shot, you'll have a huge cpu load during a long time, so keep in mind to do that during no peek hours (I have a PIV 3.06 Ghz HT with 2GB ram, and when I did a backup of my 40 siteworx account in one shot, the loadaverage and cpu loads goes through the "sky" during at least 30mn)

Why don't you use a backup script as RSNAPSHOT for example. I use it to backup every 6 hours (4 per days) and every days (7 days) :
/etc
/home
/var
/usr

I also created a SH script that dump all mysql databases and this scripts is launch by rsnapshot

Pascal

IWorx-Socheat

03-11-2005, 02:14 PM

Yes BUT siteworx users can't use it in a cron job. The cron has to be set for user iworx :-p

Any solutions ?

Yes. In 1.9.2. :)

pascal

03-11-2005, 02:21 PM

Yes. In 1.9.2. :)

Lol, so cool :)

Ask for it and you'll get it :-p

Pascal

pascal

03-11-2005, 02:29 PM

Socheat,

What do you mean by "filename template" ?

--siteworx (set the path and filename to the default locations and filename template)

It could be great to provide an example :)

Thanks a ton for your very good job iworx guys
(lol that made a long time that I had said this kind of trick :-p )

bluesin

03-11-2005, 03:46 PM

pascal, I'm not running any production data on interworx as of yet. I'm still running all of my sites under Ensim.

Over on that server I use webmin to backup all of my data because ensim is not reliable, this discussion is concerning whether or not I use webmin on Interworx or use Interworx.

I use Webmins backup programs to backup all the data at /home, all the config files for apache, ssh, proftpd, cron jobs, boot up and shutdown, users and groups, etc, etc (there are a lot of config files), all of that is dumped at midnight and it indeed does consume CPU, although it does not come close to bringing the server to its knees.

And I use webmin to dump my sql databases once an hour.

These are all automated scripts that get done as yours are.

Why don't you use a backup script as RSNAPSHOT for example. I use it to backup every 6 hours (4 per days) and every days (7 days) : /etc /home /var /usr I also created a SH script that dump all mysql databases and this scripts is launch by rsnapshot

Thats what the discussion is about, I'm used to webmin and because of the lack of a scheduled ability with Interworx (until 1.9.2 aparently), one of the first considerations before I start moving sites from the old server is backups, thus I began this discussion to see what all I had to backup with webmin should I need to recover.

I think I'm just going to run a test, wish me luck:>)

pascal

03-11-2005, 05:21 PM

Well , I wish you good luck :)

For me, there is two kinds of backups. The box admin and user backup.

If you need a "all done" backup script to backups your system, then webmin or rsnapshot or every other backup script should do the job you need.

The box admin backup must take in consideration the fact that you'll need to restore all important data as soon as possible. In this case, the RAID and a backup script are really enough. Take a look at http://www.rsnapshot.org/ as it is very simple to use / configure, indeed, you only have to edit the conf file to have it running.

Here is a sql dump script integrated to rsnapshot (the one I use)

# The assumption is that this will be invoked from rsnapshot. Also, since it
# will run unattended, the user that runs rsnapshot (probably root) should have
# a .my.cnf file in their home directory that contains the password for the
# MySQL root user.
#
# This script simply needs to dump a file into the current working directory.
# rsnapshot handles everything else.
################################################## ########
# backup the database
PATH2DB=/var/lib/mysql

RSLT=`ls -1 --ignore mysql.sock --ignore padawan.carat-hosting.com.err /$PATH2DB`

for tocreate in $RSLT; do
mysqldump -u root $tocreate > $tocreate.sql
chmod 600 $tocreate.sql
done

With this and rsnapshot you easily can create an incremental backups at the frequency you need

#########################################
# BACKUP INTERVALS #
# Must be unique and in ascending order #
# i.e. hourly, daily, weekly, etc. #
#########################################

interval hourly 4
interval daily 7
#interval weekly 4
#interval monthly 3

This example means you'll have and keep 4 backups per day (every 6 hours), 7 days of backup, 4 weeks of backup, etc ...

I good idea, (I'm going to test this) would be to also integrate the iworx backup script in rsnapshot to backup all siteworx account for example. Like this you sure the old files will be deleted automaticly..

This easily allow you to respect your SLA.

The interworx users, may also create their own backup files, As like they want, by using the interworx-cp functions :)

Here is how my backups work.

Good luck

Pascal

bluesin

03-11-2005, 05:58 PM

I think I'm just going to run a test, wish me luck:>)

Ok I logged on and renamed did a full backup of /home with webmin. Webmin just basically uses the dump command. This was backed up to a file called "backups".

After dumping everything I renamed the /home directory to /homeb and re-booted.

Everything of course broke as expected.

I restored the backup from "backups" and re-booted.

Everything came back up just fine with everything intact.

Then I renamed one if my /home/sitename directories.

Verified the site was not available.

Restored /home/sitename from "backups".

Site was available with no problems.

This is a very basic test, however it seems to work so far.

I'm thinking that if I found a rootkit on this server today, then after I got a fresh system, got interworx reinstalled and working and ready for sites, then I could restore

/etc
/home
/var
/root

And reboot and I'd pretty much be where I was at the time of the backup. Anyone have any comments?

Also, I noticed the siteworx backup I took backed up to /home/sitename/backups. Using that directory, If something happened to /sitename, perhaps in a drunken stupor I accidentaly delete it or perhaps in a fit of rage at an old girlfriend who has a couple of sites on my server and is not very keen on paying me for them, I delete them, or perhaps a bad guy from 24 targets an EMP device at a specific site on my server.

I guess the question is can I backup to a directory outside of my /sitename directory for saftey's sake, cause if that's gone the backups are gone with it...

Back when I started in the IT biz, one of my early jobs as a newbie systems programmer trainee was to check the backups each morning and insure reruns, this consisted of checking the return code for the backup in the backup printouts for the backup jobs (this was an MVS system) and filing them away for safekeeping every day.

This was a very tedious job with over 200 jobs that had to be checked, that I focused on very well early on but after a few weeks at it and the fact that I had not had any errors show up in quite a while I got lazy sort of going through the motions checking some here and there.

Then came the day we had a couple of disk drive failures, these things always happened in twos because the actual volumes were in tandem on a pyhsical drum.

Needless to say, I as luck would have it one of the failures was on a drive that I had not checked very carefully, the backup had been failing for about a week and we had to restore from a backup that was nearly two weeks old as a result.

Thus was it beaten into my pea brain the importance of backups and after the dang rootkit I've developed backup phobia:>)

Mind you, I was prepared for a disk drive failure, the RK was a new twist because of the fact that it basically renders your backups useless unless you can make sure it does not live within any of the backup files and many of them do hook themselves into many places.

That's why I'm taking pains to iron all of this out now...

Thanks for everyone's input and advice..

timryberg

03-11-2005, 06:42 PM

I guess the question is can I backup to a directory outside of my /sitename directory for saftey's sake, cause if that's gone the backups are gone with it...

I gather that this is actually something they are working on, allowing you to schedule and store your backups remotely and later restore fron said backups.

The fact that Socheat said 1.9.2 not 2.0 indicates that they are well on their way with this with a deployment date soonar rathar than later (they never say an ETA so don't ask). Just give them time, they like to do things right the first time. ;-)

Justec

03-11-2005, 06:47 PM

Cool, I love it when other people do all the work so I dont have to. Thats what I thought would happen as the Iworx database is just a mysql database stored under the /home/interworx directory.

Also, I noticed the siteworx backup I took backed up to /home/sitename/backups. Using that directory, If something happened to /sitename, perhaps in a drunken stupor I accidentaly delete it or perhaps in a fit of rage at an old girlfriend who has a couple of sites on my server and is not very keen on paying me for them, I delete them, or perhaps a bad guy from 24 targets an EMP device at a specific site on my server.

I already asked this question (look up several post in this thread) and Socheat was kind enough to give a detailed answer explaining how this can be done from the command line. I'm not sure if they will incoporate this into the 1.9.2 update so this can be done from NodeWorx. But the InterWorx team seems to program the same way I do, get something up and running that is good (and stable) then build on functionality and improve it. So the NodeWorx backup you see now will look very different from the one you see 6 months from now.

And I dont think you have to worry about the EMPs (yet). As far as I know it can't be targeted to a SiteWorx account yet, just like a 10 mile radius or so. I think it's safe to say if you lose your data so will a lot of other people :D

bluesin

03-11-2005, 07:48 PM

That's that I love about companies like this, they do it right the first time.

I'll be moving about 10 sites this weekend, I'm really not that worried about things at all, I've got the new server locked down tight with a firewall and all the appropriate settings set up and installed rkhunter the first day which is scheduled to run and I review my logs daily for intrusion attempts.

So I'm not really that worried about a rootkit again, simple security measures shuch as secret user names that are the only ones allowed to log on the the system along with long phrase passwords will make all but he most dedicated intruder go away, the stuff on my server is just not that important.

I actually thought all along that it was likely a help desk employee from EV1 actually did it after I gave them access to resolve an issue one day, but who knows. I do know that they tried their best for days on end trying to get back in, I would see hundreds and hundreds of attempts a day for a while there.

All that is said to say that I think its unlikely that I'll be experencing a rootkit again and thus won't have to go through a nightmare restore scenario again.

And I backup / to a mirror drive in case of a disk failure so I'm pretty much covered there.

I'm not worried in the least, lookin forward to the journey. I have to tell you one of the things I really have fun with when encountering a company like Nexcess/Interworx and a great product like this is the enjoyment I get seeing it mature and getting to use it as it does.

This company reminds me of pmachine, a company I have the utmost respect for as Express Engine is one of the best products I've EVER run across.

Thanks again for all of the insight and advice...

timryberg

03-11-2005, 08:05 PM

Glad to have you with us in our little cult . . . err group ;-)

If you have questions, give us a hollar. Someone here will no doubt know the answer :-)

I actually thought all along that it was likely a help desk employee from EV1 actually did it after I gave them access to resolve an issue one day, but who knows. I do know that they tried their best for days on end trying to get back in, I would see hundreds and hundreds of attempts a day for a while there.

Be carefull saying things like this on a public forum unless you have some sort of proof of something malitious from them. Libel also counts on the Internet, and this comes close to that line.

bluesin

03-11-2005, 08:41 PM

Understand, I qualified it that I said "I thought" and I I did have a long discussion with them about it, not to mention that the exact same problem was pasted across their forums.

This is not meant to be a stab at EV1 at all, EV1 is great. As I said, its just something that came across my mind.

As I said, who knows, I do know that 99% of the security breaches come from employees within and not from the outside. All I know is I opened a ticket, whereas I gave them access to my system and 48 hours later I was dead in the water.

As a matter of fact that was the only way I got them to give me some time on the system, I basically pointed that finger right back at them and told them that based on industry analysis the most liklely suspect was someone within their orginazation.

This stuff I do here is just a hobby so far, my real job is with a somewhat large computer services company and I've had many a discussion about security breaches that occured from within that never make it to the public forum with some pretty big customers.

The point there is that no-one should trust anyone.

Least of all your wife, your best friends, as a matter of fact the only folks you can trust are your drinking buddies, they actually never remember anything:>)

Cult eh? Is there a philosophy that goes along with this cult?

timryberg

03-11-2005, 11:51 PM

Cult eh? Is there a philosophy that goes along with this cult?

not really, just that server/website managers should be easy to use, yet powerfull.

kipper3d

03-17-2005, 10:11 AM

The info below is good. Exactly what i needed. Who needs gui if you have cli?

Ok question, whats the output file type? tar.gz?

So I could back up to second hard drive, but for restore, i need to place customers backup within their site location? What if it exceeds their disk quota usage?

Thanks!

Here's the "--help" of backup.pex

Optional:
--web (backup web files)

--mail (backup email files)

--databases (backup databases)

--all (backup everything in /home/uniqname. default if previous 3 are all omitted)

--email (email to send a "Done!" email to)

Required:
--domain (domain to backup)

--file (set the path and filename of the backup file. however, this will change in a future release to just setting the path, and the backup filename will always be autogenerated by the script to maintain consistency)

--siteworx (set the path and filename to the default locations and filename template)

Only --file OR --siteworx needs to be supplied, since they obviously achieve the same result.

kipper3d

03-17-2005, 10:20 AM

Hi,

One last missing peice.

Is there a way I can get this to increment in number or date/time for filename?
Don't want to overwrite the backup each time. Like to keep a few days of backups before overwriting.

kipper3d

03-17-2005, 10:58 AM

Also, how do you back up all domains, instead of just a domain?

--domain is one of the requirements. --domain all?

IWorx-Socheat

03-17-2005, 01:00 PM

The info below is good. Exactly what i needed. Who needs gui if you have cli?

Ok question, whats the output file type? tar.gz?
Yes, it outputs a .tar.gz.

So I could back up to second hard drive, but for restore, i need to place customers backup within their site location? What if it exceeds their disk quota usage?
From the CLI you can simply run: /home/interworx/bin/./convert.pex

There are parameters you can pass to convert.pex, but it is completely interactive and will prompt for any missing information. Here are the main params of interest:

--archive=<backupfilename>. Tell convert.pex where the backup file is.

--control-panel=<panel>. Valid options here are "siteworx" or "cPanel". It will tell convert.pex what control panel backup it's working with

--ip-address. Specify the IP address that will be used for the restored account. IP address must exist on the box.

Again, if you leave any or all of the above parameters out, interactive mode will be started and will ask for the missing information. Additional parameters are:

--force. If an account exists with the same domain as the one in the backup, it will automatically be deleted and overwritten by the backup data without prompting you.

--quiet. Tell convert.pex to run quietly (disables interactive mode). convert.pex will abort if any required information is missing (i.e., it has to prompt for it). For example, if an account exists with the same domain as the one in the backup, and --force is *NOT* specified, convert.pex will abort.

Is there a way I can get this to increment in number or date/time for filename?
Don't want to overwrite the backup each time. Like to keep a few days of backups before overwriting.
What do you mean by "filename template" ?
By using --siteworx, it will automatically generate the filename of the backup file for you. The filename "template" is:

<domain.tld>_<type>_<timestamp>.tar.gz

Where domain.tld is the domain being backed up, <timestamp> is the time the backup was *started* (not finished) and in the format YYYYMMDD_hhmmss. <type> indicates the type of backup. If <type> is missing, this is a full backup. A partial backup type takes the form: partial-dmw, where "d" = database, "m" = mail, and "w" = web files.

So, for example:
abc.com_20050303_155912.tar.gz is a full backup for domain 'abc.com' made on March 3rd, 2005 at 15:59:12 (3:59:12PM)

abc.com_partial-m_20050316_23632.tar.gz is a partial backup of mail for the domain 'abc.com' made on March 16th, 2005 at 2:36:32 (2:36:32AM).

abc.com_partial-dm_20050316_23632.tar.gz is the same as above, except it's a partial backup of both database and mail files.

--domain is one of the requirements. --domain all?
Currently, the only way to do this is from NodeWorx. Go to the Backup page, and you can check all the domains you want to run a backup from. If you know the all the domain names, you could write a shell script that loops over them. For example:

#!/bin/sh
for domain in "abc.com" "nexcess.net" "interworx.info" "slashdot.org"; do
/home/interworx/bin/./backup.pex --domain=$domain
done

I would suggest not backgrounding this command because as some of you may have noticed, the backup is fairly resource intensive, so you might not want multiple backups running at once.