[Novalug] Back to the future

DonJr djr1952@hotpop.com
Tue Mar 18 03:33:10 EDT 2008


On Tue, 2008-03-18 at 01:07 -0400, Alvin Smith wrote:
> What was your preferred method of backup and restore?  Or was it a
> matter of cloning the drive and then resizing the partitions? 

My current preferred method of a full ROOT backup is:
   Boot the system using RIP[*1*] or System Rescue[*2*]
    {either by CD, my custom Grub entry or PXE boot}
  And use
     mount {system root partition} /mnt/hd
     cd /mnt/hd
     tar cf - . | gzip -9 > {backup storage}

And I use my matching "restore" method to restore/clone a system.
    (boot the new system by Rescue CD or PXE)
    Partition the drive
    mkfs ....  # I currently prefer ext3, but have used others
    mount {system root partition} /mnt/hd
    cd /mnt/hd
    zcat {backup storage} | tar xvfp -
    grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/hd {(root)}

It's possible using this method and networked together systems to CLONE
a system without using backup storage.

I've only ever once resized a Linux partition with Live Data on it.
It's far simpler to just backup a system and repartition followed by
restore.

My customized Grub configuration is part of what makes it so easy.

-- 
 DonJr

[*1*] - http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
[*2*] - http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page





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