creating a redundant backup Apache web server

[carsy]

We have a couple of linux web servers. One holds the web scripts the other the database. I have limited knowledge with Linux..(trying hard to read as much as poss). We had a hardware fail recently which caused a downtime of 24 hours. I have now purchased a new server unit and would like to use it as a backup to the web server (in case of further hardware problems). Does anyone know how this could be achieved.

Thanks

[genlee]

Ok there is a few ways of doing this. You could have your new unit act as a nas to store data on. Just install nfs on it and mount that on your servers. Then have it copy data to the nfs point to back it up. Another way is to have this server act as both of your other servers. I am not sure what type of database server you are using buy mysql has a replication feature so it can act as a slave to your master db server. You can use nfs to mirror the scripts over incase your scripts server goes down. There is a program called heartbeat which will give you high avail by having a box taking the ip of a node that goes down. You could install that so if any of the servers go down, the backup server will take their ip until they go back up.

[carsy]

Thanks Genlee........ Not only one solution but a few to choose from. I will check which one would be most suited. We are using a Sybase backend....i will have a look at the options.

Thanks again...