On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 8:41 PM, David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:
On 01/15/2015 07:19 PM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
I'm trying to develop a reliable backup method that does not use
proprietary tools or formats, and is free as in beer. I thought I had it,
but i just tried a restore, and it's a miserable failure. I wonder if
anyone here can point out the error of my ways.
I have a tar backup of the entire system, excluding /sys, /proc and /dev.
I have a tar backup of a bind-mount of /dev.
These were taken while the system was running, but quiet. I did it this
way because I cannot get the system to boot into single user mode. Putting
"single" on the end of the "linux" like results in a black screen.
I restored these, created /sys and /proc, and tried to boot the resulting
partition. It boots, but X does not come up, or even seem to try. I can
do a console login to my usual account, and stuff is there.
I'm quite clueless as to why this is happening. I could sure use some help.
There are two basic kinds of "backups":
1. File system -- e.g. a copy of the files and directories on an mounted and operating drive.
2. Raw binary image -- e.g. a copy of the bytes on a drive taken when the drive is powered, but the partitions, volumes, file systems, etc., are not mounted.
For system drives, the former won't work; you need the later. I connect a large hard drive (to hold the images), boot Debian installation media into rescue mode, and use 'dd' to backup/ restore system drive raw binary images.
I was hoping for some details on why this won't work on system drives, or conditions under which it just might. Another user has suggested I read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem/TAR which suggests that it actually should work.
HTH,
David
--
Kevin O'Gorman
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