Ah, very interesting! Thank you, Jupiter!

I can speak for Dreamgrid, as I am the author. In Dreamgrid, backups can be set to run automatically, or you can start one at any time with a few clicks, DG always uses --publish and for IARs the --home . However, you can just type in what you want, or press the up arrow in any region and change the text there to anything you want.

This is a very good overview, but not the best OAR link as that link is describing Load OAR from an old, insecure 0.8.2.1 era. The best link is now Load Oar 0.9.0+, or http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Load_Oar_0.9.0%2B which has more commands to rotate, move and cut and merge oars. as well as much better help.

No one should be using 0.8.2.1 or 0.9.0. It's hypergrid is 100% unsecure. It's a 10 on a scale of easy to hack, and is a 10 out of 10 for risk of data exposure. For example, anyone can read etc/password on Linux. This was fixed in 0.9.2.1 (non PBR) and all later versions. Ubit also just accepts another security fix for a simple DOS attack a few days ago. We all work very hard to keep Opensim safe and secure.

Also I disagree on OARS and --noassets. Those are not backups. They are useful if you want to copy a region on an existing server. Its okay on DreamGrid to make a copy this way, but this is not a good thing to do on Dreamgrid if you have deleted the original region and want to reload it. This is because, unlike regular Opensim, DG always clears the region database if you delete the region. This saves gigabytes of disk space over time. I run 375 regions on my laptop and reload them often for testing. My database does not grow.

Technically, IARs and OARs are just a way to move things. Neither backup everything, For example, IARs, until very recently, broke all gloss and normal maps. All old IARs destroy outfits, which has now been fixed in new IARs in the beta channel. But it will not fix old ones. Linux and other grids have to run a SQL command to fix them. DreamGrid automatically fixes old IARS.

OARs don't back up users, the necessary region files, and don't back up script state. Dreamgrid can auto-create the region file, and also check its the right size, as it examines the OAR befopre loading.

Secondly, since fsassets was created, assets will never be duplicated becasue the fsassets hash used by Robust will not allow it. As one example, a very large grid owner once attacked another major grid, and rezzed millions of prims tryng to kill it. There was effect on disk size, as they were all copies of a single cube prim which is one asset. It did put a millions of extra rows in the fsassets table, which I easily cleared.

The contents of opensim\bin\fsassets are immutable (never changed). But if your disk starts to fail, dies or gets encrypted, the --noassets switch will kill your grid dead. You don't have a backup.

FYI: All but very small grids should be running fsassets. All major grids and DreamGrid do. Without fsassets, MySQL is slow, bloated and makes it very time consuming and laggy to backup the MySQL folder. A mysqldump and bin\fsassets is the ONLY complete backup. After a non-fsassets grid is changed to fsassets, which any grid can easily do, the MySQL Database for assets drops to a few hundreds of rows and all images, mesh, scripts and other asets are zipped and saved as files on disk, which also bypass robust and are sent directly to the region. This is all much faster and safer.

Otherwise MySQL makes a very large single file on disk for assets that is prone to failure. I've personally spent weeks moving and then writing code to locate and fix a MySQL database that had a single character change due to a bit flip. Backing up OARs and their IARs would have lost 1,500 user accounts, and all settings on all regions. Most small grids wil not have this problem, though.

Speakign of backups, the best backup is mysqldumps and a copy of bin\assets and bin\region on a USB HDD, Rotate that disk periodically with a second USB disk and keep one in a fire safe, and put a copy in the cloud, Backblaze is very inexpensive. Or use dropbox, as it takes no disk space and you can easily restore as the disk is virtual. I have a 2 TB dropbox about half full of stuff, dating back to 2006.

Make sure any hard disk you get is > 8 TB, as all disks smaller than that are SMR, which are poor performing and prone to failure due to the writing technique that they use. Most > 8 TB are CMR, which is archival quality. Please do not use a a SSD for long term backup. They don't last - much like the ink used on a CDRW will die after a few years, but due to electron drifting in the silicon dioxide.

Thankyou Jupiter yes now I understand the oar thing, you explain it well. I have been saving my .oars like everyone and their dogs do, with no options. Grins stupidly.

Thank you for this very detailed and helpful post :)

Nenn es, wie du willst, Betty, es ist im Grunde immer noch Diebstahl, und die meisten von uns sind, wenn wir ehrlich zu uns selbst sind, damit nicht ganz einverstanden. Leider kam das spezielle Mesh-Avatar- und Content-Projekt für Opensim hauptsächlich wegen der fast absurden Natur von Open Source nicht richtig in Gang. Das Mesh-Body-Projekt von Ruth und Roth war im Grunde eine gute Idee, hätte meiner Meinung nach aber in der Entwicklungsphase zunächst Closed Source sein sollen, um einen konsistenten Projektfortschritt zu gewährleisten und so die Schaffung eines Content-Ökosystems durch die Entwickler zu ermöglichen, die nicht ständig versuchen müssten, ein bewegliches Ziel aus völlig unterschiedlichen Versionen mit geringer Kompatibilität zu treffen. Ich glaube, Taarna Wells hat die Erstellung von Inhalten für Ruth und Roth aufgrund der mangelnden Konsistenz zwischen den Body-Versionen aufgegeben. Wir haben einige sehr begabte Entwickler bei Opensim, Leute wie Tarrna Wells, aber auch Bibiana von Encantada, die Opensim nun leider verlassen zu haben scheint, und natürlich Aack Aardvark, der Opensim ebenfalls verlassen hat.

Du sprichst davon, dass manche Leute „zu faul oder zu feige“ sind, um etwas zu erschaffen, und deshalb „stehlen“ sie anderen Inhalte, die bereits gestohlen wurden … Nicht erstellt. OS-Bewohner waren immer glücklich, wir haben einfach die Dinge erschaffen, die wir brauchten, und diese Dinge oft kostenlos mit anderen geteilt – viele von uns „Old-School“-Bewohnern tun genau das immer noch. Ich kaufe auch gerne Inhalte auf dem Kitely Market und neuerdings auch in Remmy Ravenhursts Gloebit-Shops – ich bin nicht 100 % unschuldig, was die Verwendung von Raubkopien in Opensim angeht, aber wie meine Herangehensweise an den Kauf bei Amazon im echten Leben ist es etwas, das ich nach Möglichkeit vermeiden möchte. Ich habe Stunden, Tage, Monate und manchmal Jahre damit verbracht, Gegenstände in Opensim zu erstellen, von denen die meisten für andere kostenlos verfügbar sind oder irgendwann verfügbar sein werden. Interessiert es mich, wenn andere meine Kreationen nehmen und in ihre Shops stellen? Nein, das tue ich nicht, und es freut mich zu wissen, dass jemandem ein von mir erstellter Gegenstand so gut gefällt, dass er ihn auch mit anderen teilen möchte. Die meisten von euch werden auf euren Reisen durch das OS-Metaversum irgendwann einmal über eine meiner Straßenbrücken gelaufen sein – es ist immer eine angenehme Überraschung, wenn jemand noch Verwendung für etwas findet, das ich vor über einem Jahrzehnt erstellt habe. Ja, wer stiehlt, wird zwar „bereichert“, aber ich finde es einfach etwas heuchlerisch, dass diese Personen dann Eigentumsrechte an den gestohlenen Inhalten geltend machen – das war nie Teil der Opensim-Kultur, ebenso wenig wie Copybotting – wir haben alle geteilt, unter der Bedingung, dass jeder mit dem, was wir gemacht haben, machen kann, was er will, außer es für Geld zu verkaufen.

You sound like you see yourself as the measure for everything.
And yet, in the end, it’s the shop owner’s rules that count — and deserve respect.
This isn’t about something off the shelf, but about something truly unique.
When we place ourselves above someone else’s pain, we can easily lose a piece of our humanity.
Perhaps you’ve noticed yourself that some of these changes have taken you further away from who you once were — and that this might be one reason why thoughts of earlier times keep finding their way back to you?

Oh so true Suzi! I have learnt so much about scripting simply by being able to read and tweak scripts in here. As far as building goes omg don't get me started! Most of us in here are not 'building'. We are plopping down prims, arranging them, sometimes modifying them a little. Even I, though a true creator of original content in SL, in opensim I don't see the need to recreate the wheel - so many things have already been made and better than i could do - so I shop and plop. With eternal gratitude to be in this opensim where resources for the creative people are here in abundance, and our creativity is uninhibited by costs.

I’ve loaded OARs myself and the original creator names stayed intact. If the creator name changes, it usually means the asset’s creator info was already gone before that OAR was made.