Joe Andrews wrote, in part:

>In my new position, I have inherited 8 mailaing lists and no backup/recovery process!  I am new to LSoft product and hope someone can help me with specific instructions for backup / recovery.
>

I would consider  backup and recovery to be primarily the responsibility
of the machine owner or perhaps the LISTSERV site maintainer.

>While I manage the lists, our network engineers have access to the Unix box housing the LSoft software and list files.
>

Bingo.  They have access to all the files on the box and should be
backing it up. Whether/how they might make restores available to you or
develop backup policies that meet your needs is a matter for your
company, is it not?

Certainly, if you are not only a list owner but site maintainer, then
you have TELNET/SSH access to the box, and can effect backups by other
means (tar  and/or ftp; whatever).  But then this is the list owner list
... :-)

>What is the "best practice" was of backing up the files (the specification, member list, welcome/departure messages, archives, etc.) related to the various mailing lists, so that we can recover after a complete failure or port the lists to another server running the LSoft application:
>

IMHO, this is a matter for the LISTSERV site maintainer and/or owner of
the box, not the list owner.  I'm not saying you should or shouldn't
ignore this area, but it should be a very much secondary to the box and
site maintainer responsibility.

>A. From can/should the Server Manager (unix) do?
>    Are there specific directories that need to be backed up?
>

This is outside the scope of LSTOWN-L, I think.  (One might expect the
operating system, tcpip, mail and LISTSERV configurations to have need
of a disaster recovery plan).

>B. What can/should the List Owner do?
>

IMHO, ensure others are doing their jobs, then worry that the lists
purposes are being met!?  :-)
An occasional "get listname ( nolock" may be good secondary protection.
Likewise, if the archives are critical and the site DR plan is
insufficient for your needs, "get"s for the archives  and templates may
be in order.

>      I tried:
>            GET list1
>
...

>I believe I have the file to rebuild the base of the list and the members (from GET), but I am not certain if that is all I would need. Does that preserve all user information, preferences, and their signon date?
>

"get listname ( nolock" obtains all list settings, including subscriber
information.  It does not obtain any archive information, filelist
configuration nor information, nor subscriber site settings such as web
id, password, web preferences, etc.  It contains list specific settings,
but not LISTSERV site-wide settings. It contains neither site nor list
configurations of e-mail and web templates.

Hope this helps.  cheers, wayne