Re: creating complete OS image
On Tue, 18 Oct 2005, R. W. Rodolico wrote:
I generally just back up my data since it is pretty straight forward
to re-install the operating system. I point Apache DocumentRoot to
someplace in the /home directory (I do /home/http) and have a cron
job back up the databases into /home/dbbackup. Then, I have a cron
job that rsync's /home, /root and /etc to another machine each
night.
As far as the operating system is concerned, there is a way to save
your package selection (ie, what packages are installed on a
particular machine) on one floppy.
Using this, I have recovered a dead machine in a few hours before.
Don't know if this is "best practise" but it works for my small
operation.
Problems start up when you are using softwares which aren't properly
supported under Debian.
One example is Qmail. Another is courier.
The default Qmail packages in Debian don't have much patches applied,
and it becomes difficult to patch Debian's version of Qmail. And then
its maintainence.
Same goes for courier. It doesn't have proper vpopmail/mysql support, IIRC.
In such setups if the server dies, getting them back with the same
number features is a time consuming nightmare.
I too do user data backups on a routine basis. But I'm scared of setting
up all the thing again just in case the drive dies.
If I can have a mechanism like:
1) Take the present snapshot of the running server.
2) Take periodic user data backups.
3) Say now the drive dies, I replace it with a new one.
4) Re-Deploy the snapshot image.
5) Re-store the last backed-up user data
6) Back in business.
This would exclude me from the worries about, "Damn! Did I apply that
patch ? Did I miss installing any software ? Oh! I hope the user database isn't corrupted" et cetera.
Regards,
rrs
--
Ritesh Raj Sarraf
RESEARCHUT -- http://www.researchut.com
"Stealing logic from one person is plagiarism, stealing from many is research."
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
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