Moving the Backups Directory and Symbolically Linking to It

Customer's main backup volume ran out of disk space.  Rather than moving the profiles to another disk with plenty of free space and editing the /opt/beginfinite/reload/conf/[profile].conf file to point to the new location, they would like to move the contents of the profiles' "backups" directory to the new location but leave the rest of the profile where it is at. 

In essence, they are attempting to uncouple the "backups" directory from the main Reload profile structure.  They would like to replace the "backups" directory with a symbolic link that points to the new location.  Can Reload work with this?

While Reload backups will not work with symbolic links in the live post office directory (by design), it doesn't seem to have any issue with symbolic links in the profile directory, at least when replacing the "backups" directory with a symbolic link.  It seems to be able to successfully complete Standard and Portable backup jobs.

It does break the post office migration and the Access/Restore/DR Mode POA, though.  Steps are given in this article which seem to fix the migration and POA issues; thus, there are several steps that need to be taken when moving the backups directory and replacing it with a symbolic link to its new path.

THIS IS NOT A SUPPORTED SOLUTION
GWAVA assumes no responsibility for the results when modifying the Reload profile directory structure or from attempting to move any of its files or subdirectories outside of its normal operation.  This information is shared only as a guide to those who are willing to assume all the risk and liability.  Technical support would not be able to fix any issues with this or help you configure it.

Moving and Linking: The "backups" Directory

The following steps assume that the new location for the "backups" directory is available before the steps are performed and that the person doing so has sufficient rights.

1.  Ensure that no backup jobs are queued or running during this process.

2.  Change to the profile directory.

3.  Move the backup directory to its new location:  mv backups /[destination path]

4.  Create the symbolic link:  ln -s /[destination path]/backups ./backups

This creates a symlink directory called "backups" in your profile directory that points to the actual "backups" directory you moved previously to a new location. 

Fixing the Symbolic Link to the "blobs" Directory

1.  In the parent directory to the "backups" directory you moved, make a new directory called "blobs".

For example, if the "backups" directory had been moved to /data so that the new path becomes /data/backups, then create a new directory called "blobs" inside of /data; thus, inside of /data there are two directories: "backups" and "blobs" (/data/backups and /data/blobs).

2.  Inside of the new /data/blobs directory, create a symbolic link called "offiles" pointing to /[profile]/blobs/offiles.

Example:  ln -s /reload/post1/blobs/offiles ./offiles

This article was originally published in the GWAVA knowledgebase as article ID 2151.