Is it possible to back up my linux server onto my vista server?

[mrbeepa]

I have two servers going one is a linux box and the other a vista 64 box. I am wondering if there is anyway I can back my linux box up onto my vista box? My vista box sees and access the linux box just fine, I'm not familiar enough yet with linux to set up so my linux box sees and accesses the vista box.

At this point I'm making backups excluding the media folder where I create the backup file and then copying them to my vista server. But I'd like to have the whole linux drive saved in one file that I could use to restore the system if it crashed for some reason.

Right now I use this command:

tar zcvpf /media/disk/Bak_latest.tar --directory=/ --exclude=media .
this is saved to a thumbdrive.

But I'm not sure if the system crashed I could restore from this copy on a thumb drive?

If I had to do a reinstall from this copy I'm worried it would fail?

maybe someone can explain better what I need to do or point me to a place that has the info I need?

[coopstah13]

dd command will do this job for you, here is a link with examples, scroll down and look at copying a partition, it shows you how to create an exact copy of a partition and compress it, and also take that copy of the partition and restore it!

Learn the DD command - LinuxQuestions.org

[mrbeepa]

dd command will do this job for you, here is a link with examples, scroll down and look at copying a partition, it shows you how to create an exact copy of a partition and compress it, and also take that copy of the partition and restore it!

Learn the DD command - LinuxQuestions.org

Thank you coopstah for your response and the link. Though I am having troubles understanding the information at that link. I have never used the dd command and did not quite figure out it's usage from the posts at that link. I am researching further. Thank you again for you assist.

[anj]

Learn the !

[coopstah13]

make sure you execute this from another partition, replace /dev/sdb2 with whatever partition you want to make a copy of

dd if=/dev/sdb2 ibs=4096 | gzip > partition.image.gz conv=noerror

Makes a gzipped archive of the entire partition. To restore use:

dd if=partition.image.gz | gunzip | dd of=/dev/sdb2

[druidmatrix]

If you are just trying to backup data, tar is a better option. You can put in excludes as you have in your tar command. But if you want to create a replica of your linux partition, dd is a better idea.

You have to decide whether you want "backups" or "disaster recovery" - they are not quite the same thing! Perhaps you could combine the two - take a dd of your disk such that you can simply rebuild the server, and create periodical backups such that you always have "backups".

[mrbeepa]

make sure you execute this from another partition, replace /dev/sdb2 with whatever partition you want to make a copy of

dd if=/dev/sdb2 ibs=4096 | gzip > partition.image.gz conv=noerror

Makes a gzipped archive of the entire partition. To restore use:

dd if=partition.image.gz | gunzip | dd of=/dev/sdb2

I appreciate the code bits. I have been actually pondering the question druidmatrix posed. Deciding whether I need to back up the partition or just certain folders. I don't know that there is an easy way to restore the complete system without doing a complete partition backup.

During this discussion I have found myself with another dilema, what filesystem to use for backups from one linux box and one vista 64 box?

As to that last question, I'm thinking if I do the backup through networking It'll be a moot question.

AAaaaaaaaaaaah!

Thanks for all the input everyone!