Yes, and no. We do nightly backups of the servers containing most user data (such as the home directory servers) but we do not backup most of the individual workstations. For example, we do nightly backups of the following:

• All home directory servers for the primary CS, Extreme, and OSL domains.

• The email spool directory for incoming email on the department mail server.

• Certain non-home directory data on the various research group specific servers.

• By arrangement with the owner of the equipment, some data from specific desktop machines.

• Certain operating system specific data as needed by the Computer Systems Group.

However, there is a lot of other data that is not backed up. Here are some examples of data that is NOT backed up:

• Any file or directory that has the .NOBACKUP extension is automatically excluded from the backups. If you create a directory with the .NOBACKUP extension all file and directories under this directory will be excluded. This provides a convenient way for users to exclude data from the backups, if desired.

• The disks in most desktop workstations contain only the operating system and temporary user files and are not backed up. Even though you may have the ability to save files in temporary directories on the local machine, you should only use this space for temporary data that can go away at at any time.

• The /scratch disk space is not backed up. This should only be used for temporary storage of non-critical files since files in /scratch are auto-deleted after 7 days and never backed up.

• The /nobackup disk space is not backed up. This should only be used for files that are non-critical, are easily recreated, or have been backed up via some other mechanism.

• The disk space allotted for VMware images (typically /VMware-Images) is not backed up. If you have important data on your VMware disk image, you must copy it out to your CS home directory if you want it to be backed up.

• Nothing on the Odin, Tyr, Woton, or Sif cluster (including /san) is backed up. This space should only be used for files and data that is either easily recreated or is also stored elsewhere.

• The Extreme lab xraid RAID array is not backed up. This space is accessible via the path /l/xraid and is used by members of the Extreme lab.

If in doubt about what is or isn't backed up, please ask.

If you have deleted a file and need to have it restored from the backups, please see the associated FAQ entry for information.

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