Re: Debian OS Backup

[Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:54:25AM -0500, Jacob Ramirez wrote:
> We are running linux with Debian OS.  I am new to using linux and
> debian.  Can I use an external hard drive to backup the operating system
> and files on our linux servers?  If so, how do I create a full backup of
> the system for disaster recovery?  Is it easy to restore if there is a
> need?
> Is there documentation somewhere that I can read that explains how to do
> this?  Thanks for your help in advance.


There are many ways to do backups.  Here's how I do it.

1.	look at what I need to restore from scratch:  netinst media for 
	the current OS (Etch) for the current archetecture (i386 and
	amd64).

2.	To what data do I need instant access even in the event of
	catastrophy?  Put it in plain text in a directory of the backup
	media (CD, disk, USB stick, whatever).

3.	To what data do I need access in order to install successfully?
	For me its things like /etc/network/interfaces, ppp configs and
	chatscripts (dial-up internet), /etc/hosts, /etc/inittab.  Put
	this in plain text in a directory on the backup media.

4.	.tgz tarball of /etc

5.	Partition info: output of /sbin/fdisk -lu and /sbin/sfdisk -d
	for each drive.  Also output of 
	
	du -c -si --max-depth=1 /*
	df --si

	Save as plain text on the backup media.

6.	Both a list of manually installed packages and all installed
	packages.  Output of:
		dpkg --get-selections
		aptitude search `~i!~M'

7.	/boot/grub/menu.lst

8.	Copy my own list of hardware, instalation logs (what I did to
	get something working).

9.	tarball that includes:
	/etc/, /usr/local/, /root/, /var/local/, /home/
	but excudes:
	/var/local/bacup/

All this gets saved to /var/local/backup/$HOSTNAME and then gets saved
to various media (mostly CD and USB stick). You could also use a
removable hard drive.  You want a filesystem that can be read by most
computers/os,  which means vfat.

I don't backup the whole system since everything that I don't backup
belongs to dpkg.  If you want to have a backup of all the debs, I'd
suggest that you create an apt-proxy repository on your removeable
drive.

Good luck.

Doug.