Inventory Backup

I don't seem to be able to find a comprehensive way to back up the complete inventory. It would seem to me that an inventory backup process would be one of the first things that was available. I know I'm mostly blond but am I missing something?

- Dina

Hello,
I just had post about this question here the link I hope it helps some These were the responses and suggestions I recieved.
/327/08/165931/1.html

Thanks I had a look at the answers.

In other words there is no backup for things I buy and it takes an awful lot of work to backup the things I can.

That is the absolutely the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Doesn't anyone at LL know anything about computing. What I am reading suggest that in case of a computer glitch I could lose my whole inventory and that's just too bad.

Why not have a complete inventory backup that is created in such a way that it would capture the whole inventory to my local hard drive. The only restore option would a total restore. I'd be very happy to do a weekly backup and if the inventory got lost I'd only lose at most a week's worth of changes.

The backup file could even be encrypted so we could not break pieces out of it like non-copyable items.

While I don't have a huge investment in sl right now, I know that some people do. Not being able to provide some basic protection for what I do have invested is a major deterrent to further commitment in sl.

- Dina

The problem is that there is no way to tell the difference between lost, rezzed, transferred or moved.

You could rez a prim in-world, copy your entire inventory to it, claim "oh no! I lost everything!", get a restore and you now end up with everything doubled.

The "emergency restore" (rollback) process for sims could be seen as a back-up method, and as it stands they simply have no real way of telling whether a rollback will restore what you lost, or if it will give you extra copies of things that are no-copy.

A rollback on a sim can under some circumstance give you two copies of an object that is copy protected. This info I gleaned from the Linden Island database.

I also understand that rollbacks can cause loss of data

Here is a link that explains the process, hope this helps

http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=101

I agree that it would be nice to be able to back up the inventory to hard disk, and more usefully reduce load on Linden asset servers by removing the data from those servers, and only uploading what you may need to use in game.

Of course issues of file permissions will need to be addressed together with that of robust data encryption, the last thing the SL economy needs is another copybot type issue

Sounds like LL has hired a number of Microsoft programmers. The people who code without thinking through the design and impact of what their code really does and what is really needed.

Ok. So they have design and function problem with backing up an entire inventory. Maybe they should think about fixing it instead of just documenting how bad it is.

Dina, better say nothing than being arrogant I think.

Typical of engineers in all fields. great theory, poor practice.

Was going to comment but this thread has deteriorated into into sword-rattling and name-calling.

Have we no knowledge of off-site RAID drives with back-up redundancy? Is every nitwit with a computer smarter than the folks at Linden who get paid for keeping the system running for Chrissakes?

Enough already. I'd best stop here before I get into even more trouble.

The simple answer:

Because data on your computer can't be trusted.


If you purchase a vehicle, you own the rights to use a copy of something made by someone else.

You have not purchased the rights to see and modify the scripts that make that vehicle operate.

Backing up that vehicle to your hard drive .. in any way that would allow you to re-create/re-cover that asset again later would, almost certainly, allow you access to copy and pirate the scripts that someone slaved over to make that vehicle.

Likewise... what if it was a No-Copy/Transfer purchase? You backed a copy up to your hard drive...

And then you sell the original.

What then? You just restore the object from your hard drive and carry on ?

There are REASONS here.

Make sure you think through the issues before accusing others of being short sighted.

Or someone will point out that it's YOU that's being short sighted.

Sorry, but I can't buy that argument.

I know the local computer can't be trusted. That is why any backup has to be in a proprietary encrypted format.

I don't really understand why everyone isn't extremely concerned about their inventory being backed up. As I understand it, its the heart and soul of an SL existence. No inventory, no SL.

And lots of people have many many hours of work and lots of real dollars invested.

And all I keep hearing is that if there is a computer a glitch and a whole lot of people lose their hard earned inventory, well that's just too bad.

How would you feel is you had hundreds of thousands of dollars in a RL bank and they had a computer glitch and you lost your money and all they said was sorry too bad.

I found this product on Second Life Exchange.

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=175739

It is still in the beta version and only costs 100 Lindens so far. It appears to be an item you store copies of things inside and then place them on a certain sim for backup. It doesn't mention what to do with no copy items as I assume these are not included in this deal. It's a start, and perhaps something to look into for expensive items that are copyable.

Doesn't every unique object carry a UUID? It is copied when an object is rezzed? When is a new one attached?

/curious

I dont know if it helps, but i have a box that i put backups in, i keep it stored on my land, and IF, i ever need something becuase its not in my inventory which has happened on 1 ocasion, i go get it out of the box. Funny i started using the box to try and organize my inventory, seems the only way to limit the amount of junk a person aquires over time.. well other than throwing it away, cant do that, wouldnt be packratish

It is basically he charging for people to store items in lot like in boxes in content tabs.
I thought about doing some similar but I wouldn't charge that much.
Someone who shops and can spend hundreds can also buy small 512 lot and store stuff on their own lot.
Prices are dropping now.

Since LL owns the asset database, its actually their job to make backups of the data to have some kind of safety that you cant lose you Inventory. That in theory.

From my discussions with many of the Technical ppls at LL.. the asset server is backed up once per hour. On a few occasions, the rollbacks proved some of the backup data being corrupted or incomplete, so they run backups from further back. The further back, the more you loose. Its a tough old world out there.

I *do* have concerns about losing the creative content I've made in SecondLife... if LL goes bankrupt that's all gone, and no backup is going to help because there will be no world for those items to be re-created in.

As far as encryption goes... I suppose you'll want the decryption key too... because LL may very well lose that too making your backup useless. No?

Everything in SL is tied to asset keys. Each prim has one.. each script, every texture, every linked object, every prim's contents...

If an "asset" is lost, then all the keys that depend on that unique asset are "Broken". As far as I can tell, LL's asset problems are latency related... missing texture problems are transient, not permanent. If they were losing assets we'd be in a world of hurt.

What it seems like they're having trouble with (and what you're obviously trying to compensate for by wanting to back things up to your hard drive) is the inventory database... which merely tracks who and what has a copy of which assets.

So... what you're asking for is the list of all the asset uuid keys in your inventory... (and the permissions associated with each, if I understand how LL stores their data correctly).

Even if you could be trusted with seeing all the asset uuid keys associated with your inventory. (and you can't be because it would violate the copy/trans permissions for sounds, animations, and textures), what good is it going to do you? You can't re-build your inventory from just asset uuid's.

Think of it this way:

If content in-world on a sim gets in a mainland sim because someone screwed up an owner return... LL says too bad... it's in our lost+found folder, rebuild it ourselves.

If content in-world is lost in a private sim, or due to LL's fault, LL can roll back the sim to an earlier point in time.

If active Assets are destroyed (and I've seen no evidence of this directly or indirectly) we can upload new ones, but all the links to those assets would need to be fixed. (inactive assets that aren't in use by anything, I hear, do get archived/removed from time to time)

If our inventories seem incomplete... that may be a temporary issue (and nearly all inventory problems I've heard have been, others sound like user error).

If stuffing copies of your inventory into a prim helps you sleep better at night... knock yourself out.

But I don't want LL trusting your hard drive with reproducible copies my content.

Sorry if you don't like that. If you don't trust a bank with your money... don't give them your money.

Asset server .. or sim server?

I've never heard of LL rolling back the asset server. Only sims...

(if they rolled back the asset server, wouldn't the last hour of uploads be completely lost?!)

How do you back up the money you have stored in the bank?

You trust the bank to do it. Same here. We're trusting LL to back up the data. Any attempt to back it up outside the system causes security loopholes -- just like trying to 'back up' money you have in the bank.

One big difference is the US government insures your bank deposits (e.g., FDIC). With SL, you get no such gurarantee.

The other difference is that money is fungible; other than the security issues (not duplicating money), 'backup' is trivial. Not so with inventory data, of course.

There is more than one system supporting games/programmes like SL. Primarily a 'sim' of no more than a dedicated server that hosts the 'land' and has 'owner' permissions to reset, ban etc that interect directly with that server. The asset server is a core database programme that links and interacts with each 'sim' server. When you TP into/onto a sim, the server gets data about you (UUID), what you are wearing, what you have 'applied' such as HUD's etc. so that can be distributed to each client within, and to some extend within view in neighbouring sims. The asset server is backed up each hour along with other servers in the system that makes up SL.

I don't think this is entirely accurate.

What is backed up around once per hour is the region, or simulator - basically its entire state at the time of the snapshot, including data about objects instantiated in the region. This has little if anything to do with the asset database itself, which is invariably described as astronomical in size, and not likely practical to back up once per hour.

Admittedly, I don't have a complete grasp on the overall architecture myself, so the above statement is at best a semi-educated guess..

In adition to this thread:

It happened to me 3 days back,
Lost almost all my clothes, footwear, jewelry, and a lot of other items.
I tryed all kinds off things to regain my stuff, even been in contact with the Lindens about it.

To bad for me without result.

So the only thing i could do is get in contact with the designers to ask them to replace my stuff, wich most of them did.
But there are also items that i dont know the creator,..so tough luck for me there.

In my opinion, SL must get a backup server, to avoid copybot problems, and to make sure our expensive inventory's are in a safe backup !!!

Does anybody actually know the total size of the asset database today? I've heard differing guesses, some have it north of 40TB.

The asset servers form part of the total grid network. 'Sim Servers' hold anything present and fixed to the land, including items 'transported' into that server, attached and visible to avatars, items rezed from a inventory etc. The asset servers hold such things as your inventory, these are transferred to each sim server, starting at the point of arrival and are triggered by your TP request. Hope that clears things up for you?