How to stop OTRS appliance from wiping data on reboot?

[MJEB]

HI, I'm fairly new to OTRS and fairly new to Linux also.

However I have been tasked with setting up OTRS on a virtual Linux server, and am only left with the obstacle of backing up, and getting that backup off the virtual machine.

I plan to backup using the backup.pl to a different secondary mounted drive, then move the drive to another machine and get the backup off that way, but something strange happens when I reboot OTRS. so :

-I add a new drive the the vm
-I format the drive and mount it
-I backup to the folder that the drive has been mounted to using backup.pl
-I reboot OTRS using the reboot on the web interface with appliance manager
-The directory I mounted to which was /BACKUP/[folder I created to back up to] was still there and the backup file is also still there but the disk I mounted has been un-mounted, and the file system has reverted.

have I missed something ?
and I'm using the OTRS appliance 3.3.10

[crythias]

if you don't make a change to /etc/fstab the mount won't survive reboots. If all that's happening is that the mount point is unmounted, no data should be lost, just remount.

[MJEB]

Thankyou I had a feeling that I was missing something.

Also, when I go to mount the disk and edit etc/fstab I am presented with a file and I'm not sure as to how I should be editing it,

does the fact that it is an otrs appliance change the way you have to edit the file?

[crythias]

The appliance is merely a term for the idea of install it and it will run. But the OS is a Linux distribution, so it behaves as such.

Editing /etc/fstab is slightly outside the realm of this forum, even though it's on the appliance.

man fstab

will give you more information on how it's used. Hint: It's somewhat similar to how the mount works in general.

[MJEB]

Thankyou you've helped me alot

[hellbound41]

I'm having a similar issue. I need to mount a windows (cifs) share on my linux appliance. I plan on changing my article attachment store from DB to a file server.

I cannot mount a cifs share because cifs utilities are not installed on the otrs appliance by default. When i install the package (apt-get install cifs-utlities), i can then mount successfully. But on reboot, the package disappears and i can no longer mount.

It seems like the appliance doesn't support updating/adding packages?

[crythias]

Reboot won't delete packages. It will unmount mounts but fstab will remount if configured.

[hellbound41]

Are you sure about that? I've done A LOT of testing. Remember that I'm using the OTRS Appliance (v 4.05 and v4.08). I SSH as root, and i create a dummy directory at the root. When I reboot, the directory disappears!

I run "apt-get install cifs-utils" and then I am able to mount the windows share just fine. I noticed the utility installs mount.cifs under /sbin. As soon as I reboot, this file disappears and i can no longer mount a CIFS share. FSTAB won't work on reboot since the CIFS package no longer works. I can replicate this every single time.

[jojo]

are you booting from disk or from DVD?

[hellbound41]

from disk. i updated my previous post right before you replied... so not sure if you saw this...

"I noticed the utility installs mount.cifs under /sbin. As soon as I reboot, this file disappears and i can no longer mount a CIFS share."

[jojo]

I suggest not to use the Appliance any more. Install a plain linux with OTRS or use a managed OTRS solution

[hellbound41]

is there a reason the appliance wipes data on reboot? im pretty sure thats the source of the issue.

i'd hate to have to migrate everything over...

[jojo]

the appliance might ensure that no packages are installed. It is an appliance so manual actions will break upgrading.

As I said, migrate to a own setup.

[hellbound41]

i used the appliance because I noticed better performance. I just spinned up a new OTRS instance on Ubuntu/mysql... it seems a bit sluggish already, with zero tickets. It's running on a vmware VM with 2 CPUs and 4GB of RAM. Not sure if it just needs time to build an initial cache... do you guys recommend using a ramdisk?