Backing up my system?

Robert Meyer meyer_rm at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 26 12:57:19 EDT 2001


Well, my personal favorite backup/restore for *ix is typically 'dump/restore'
(sometimes called 'ufsdump/ufsrestore').  It is designed very specifically for
imaging a file system in a manner that will put it back the way it was when
dumped.  The restore process would be to recreate the partitions the way that
they were before the dump (although it's not that critical), mounting them and
restoring the filesystem.  Pretty simple stuff and not a lot of options.  It
automatically excludes mountpoints of other filesystems.  I've used this many
times to recover dead machines that have had their hard drives replaced after
failures.

Generally, the backup will be 'dump 0uf <backup file> /usr' for the '/usr'
filesystem where '<backup file>' is the place to put the image.  It could be a
disk file or the name of a tape drive.

'tar' is generally better for making archives of things that you want to be
able to get single files back from (dump will do that although with much more
difficulty) and 'dump/restore' is better for rebuilding crashed filesystems in
their entirety.  I've been around the Unix world for a million years (well 20,
anyway) and I remember 'tar' not doing a real good job backing up special
files, chasing mounted filesystems, etc. so I tend to still hold those
preferences.  'dump/restore' has NEVER failed me in all of the years that I've
used it.  With a good tape (or CD-R/CD-RW) device and multilevel backups, you
can recover the system to any point in time within the limits of the
incremental backup schedule.

My typical preference is to do a '0' level dump once a month, a '3' level once
a week and a '5' level incremental every night.  A recovery would take a
maximum of 3 tapes/CD sets/dumpsets.  You would first recover the last '0'
level.  If you just did the zero, then you'd be done at this point.  Then you'd
load the last '3' level.  Again, if you had just done the three level, you'd be
done.  Then load the last nightly incremental.  The file system would be
restored to the exact point that it was last night when the backup ran.

As far as installing Mandrake 8, you will be given the option of how you want
the disk layout to look and you will see the current layout.  If you've
allocated sufficient amounts of disk space for all of your partitions for
Linux, then you should be able to keep the current partition table and just
identify for the intaller where you want each partition mounted.

Hope this helps....

Cheers!

Bob Meyer
--- Joe Pollock <josephj at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Hi.  Before I get into all the gruesome details, my basic question is: How do
> I backup my system using linux so I can restore it *completely* in a simple
> manner without going through reinstalling everything (my Windoz system takes
> about 4 days by the time I get all the applications and patches etc. back
> where they were)?
> 
> I have a dual boot system with Windoz on the C and D drives (hda1, hda5) and
> Red Hat 7.0 on 3 remaining partitions.  The last and largest partition is
> /image.  It is currently empty and should have plenty of room (around 11 gb)
> for compressed backups of everything else.
> 
> I am about to install Mandrake 8.0, but first, I want to backup all of Red
> Hat (excluding the image partition itself and /mnt) to /image so I can
> restore it if I need anything or if I don't like Mandrake, etc.
> 
> I read the tar man and info pages and tried the following:
> 
> #bash
> #backuprh - backup RedHat 7.0 to image partition
> tar -c -P --preserve --same-owner -S --totals -w -z --file=/image/rh7
> --exclude=/image -V rh7 /
> 
> I realize that I need to add something like --exclude=/mnt, but the main
> problem was that when I ran this it was asking for confirmation on every file
> (which would take a few years to complete).  Can I just remove the -w option?
>  I was hoping it would only ask for confirmation for an overwrite or other
> problem - not for everything.
> 
> The bottom line is - How do I make an easily restorable backup of Red Hat to
> my /image drive and what do I have to watch for or do when I install Mandrake
> so that Windoz and the /image partition are left intact?  Also, once Mandrake
> is installed, are there any issues related to accessing the /image partition
> if I want to extract something from the archive?
> 
> As a side issue, the tar documentation refers to a backup script that should
> do a lot of this for me, but it didn't really tell me how it works.  Also, it
> said that the restore script (kind of useful) didn't exist.  What's the story
> on this?
> 
> I am big on backups, having been burnt numerous times.  I am in the process
> of installing a cd-rw drive.  One of the main reasons for getting it was so I
> could back up linux and Windoz and restore them if I have to.  It seems like
> a good idea to backup Windoz partitions from linux as some sort of image
> backup because when linux is running, Windoz isn't, so no files are locked
> etc.
> 
> What about various backup utilities like bru and amanda?  What's the easiest
> way to deal with this and keep it all straight so that when something breaks
> and panic starts to set in, there's a simple procedure to follow to get back
> to a known state without having to figure everything out again and worrying
> that you might leave out some important data or patches.
> 


=====
Bob Meyer
Knightwing Communications, Inc.
36 Cayuga Blvd
Depew, NY 14043
Phone: 716-308-8931 or 716-681-0076
Meyer_RM at Yahoo.com

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