Last week I (unluckily) had to restore a Zimbra from a backup I took with the zmback.sh script.

While the procedure is pretty simple, there’s no clear statement on how to do it, also because support is given only on the forum post which is pretty long and not easy to scan. Given that typically when you are restoring customers and users are pressing you like hell, having easy restore steps saves you some sweating.

Just for the record, zmbak.sh provides a full backup of a Zimbra installation. This means you can restore the full installation, and not like in Network Edition a single mailbox!

Ok first, if you didn’t before (shame on you!), check zmback logs to see that the backups were performed correctly, in the last days. Then find the set of backups you want to restore.

If you are restoring on a fresh installed machine, first you need to install Zimbra, using the very same version you backed up! Don’t care much at the answers you give, as we will then trash this installation. It’s just to make aware the system that Zimbra is installed.

Now comes the real restore. In short: we move away our current installation and restore. Commands follow:

mv /opt/zimbra{,_BACKUP}
mkdir /opt/zimbra
cd /opt/zimbra
dar -w -x dir_where_you_placed_your_dars/14_MyZimbraBackup_20110404_FULL
dar -w -x dir_where_you_placed_your_dars/14_MyZimbraBackup_20110405_DIFF

First command moves zimbra to zimbra_BACKUP, then we re-create Zimbra’s home, and finally we restore using dar. -x option means to extract, -w means to overwrite without asking confirmation. Obviously repeat the last command for every diff you need to restore.