Re: System Reinstall Setup

[Kenward Vaughan <kay_jay@earthlink.net>]

On Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 02:53:24PM -0500, David wrote:
...
> Actually, I'm not so concerned about making the backups as just having
> something that I can boot up and then remove the CD.  To be able to do
> this, I believe one would need a boot image that would build a ramdisk
> and then put needed {/usr}/bin, /etc, /lib, /dev, and any other system
> files onto the ramdisk, and have it mounted.  Either that, or have a
> boot CD with the files needed to create a bootable HD whereby one could
> install the rest of the files from the HD.
> 
> I may have oversimplified it, but it seems that all that is required for
> a backup system for my simple setup would be to make tar(s) of my
> complete system, using tar's --listed-incremental option.  Then
> periodically make incremental backups.

I think a whole system backup is asking for trouble if there are
glitches in the SW which lead to catastrophe.  Probably not very
likely, but... 

Additionally, a whole system backup is pretty heavy, period.  Why not
hit the important directories, then install fresh and overwrite the
conf files, etc?  

I've been playing with this myself, having tried backup2l with partial
success (backed up well, but didn't restore properly).  In further
reading, the Linux-Complete-Backup-and-Recovery-HOWTO gives apparently
good stuff for getting all the info about your drives/etc for
catastrophic failures, which could be coupled to the dump package to
give you all the info and archives needed to get it all back.

I believe the dump package contains what you want for achieving a full
backup if that remains your goal.  I haven't done much searching for
other simple scripts which do the same on a smaller scale, but expect
that a search of Karsten Self's site will do the trick.  :-)

> In the event of a total HD loss, boot some linux rescue system, create
> fresh, clean partitions, extract the full backup and then extract the
> incrementals in order.

Again, you may find the info in the above HOWTO to be useful in this
regard.

HTH,

Kenward
-- 
In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be 
_teachers_ and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, 
because passing civilization along from one generation to the next 
ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone 
could have.     - Lee Iacocca