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Administrating MarkLogic Server

Restoring from an Incremental Backup with Journal Archiving

To restore from an incremental backup, the server uses the base backup in the backup tag to get a series of incremental backups that lead to the full backup. The restore then starts with a full backup and restores using the incremental backups in reverse order. You need to specify the full backup directory and optionally the incremental backup directory. If no restore timestamp is specified, the server finds the latest backup from which to restore. Once you have completed this process, you can use journal archiving to restore the database to the current time.

If a restore timestamp is specified, the server finds a backup where the restore timestamp is between the minimum query timestamp and the backup timestamp. If no backup meets the requirement and there is a journal archive, the server finds the latest backup with backup timestamp smaller than the restored timestamp. It restores to that backup and then replays the journal to the restored timestamp.

If the journal archive exists, the server will find the backup timestamp of the last incremental backup and replay the journal starting from that timestamp.

Note

Once you restore from an incremental backup, you can no longer use the previous full backup location for ongoing incremental backups. After the restore, you need to make a fresh full backup and use that full backup location for the ongoing incremental backups. This means after the restore from an incremental backup, any scheduled backups will need to be updated to use the new full backup location. Using the old full backup location for incremental backup after a restore will cause an error.

This procedure describes how to restore a database to the current point in time using a full backup, one or more incremental backup, and journal archiving. You need to have a full backup using journal archiving and one or more incremental backups using journal archiving.

To restore a database to the current point in time, follow these steps:

  1. Log into the Admin Interface as a user with the admin role. Click the Databases link in the left menu of the Admin Interface.

  2. Click the database name for the database you want to restore, either on the tree menu or on the summary page. This database should have the same configuration settings (index options, fragmentation, range indexes) as the one that was backed up.

    Note

    For journal archiving, you need either the timestamp for the restore target or the current timestamp. This example uses a blank field (latest restore time/current timestamp) for the restore target.

  3. Click the Backup/Restore tab. The Backup/Restore screen appears. In the Restore from directory field, enter the directory where the backup exists.

    Note

    If you enter a directory that contains multiple backups of the same database, the latest one is used. If you want to choose a particular backup to restore, enter the date_stamp subdirectory corresponding to the backup you want to restore. For details of the directory structure, see Backup Directory Structure.

  4. If you have configured forests for local-disk failover, you can optionally set Include Replica Forests to true if you want to restore the replica forests from the backup. In order to use this option, you must have enabled the option to include the replica forests in the backup. For details on configuring forests for local-disk failover, see Configuring Local-Disk Failover for a Forest in the Scalability, Availability, and Failover Guide.

  5. Set Use incremental backup to true. Set Use Journal Archive to true. Leave the Restore to time blank or enter a time in xs:DataTime-Format.

    Note

    For Journal archiving to work, you need a Restore to time, otherwise the restore will proceed with last Incremental backup it finds at the location. Also, the Merge Timestamp should be older than the Restore Time.

    When restoring a backup with journal archiving enabled, be sure to change the merge timestamp from 0 to a non-zero value. Using zero for the merge timestamp will result in an error when restoring with journal archiving and restore-to-time set to zero. The merge timestamp must be set to a non-zero value.

  6. Click OK to begin the restore process.

  7. The Confirm restore screen lists the options you selected for restoring. Click OK.

The Restores table lists when the restore was started, provides an estimate of the amount of time left, and lists other status information about the restore operation.

When the process is complete, the Restores table entry will disappear.

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