Backing Up a SUSE box for redundancy

[william5271]

I am running a web server off of a SUSE Linux 10 box. I have spent time configuring it and the sites that the server hosts can't be down too long. I am worried that if my hard drive crashes it would take me days to configure a new one. The system is kind of old anyway. How can I make a copy of the good system every week so I can set up a new system quickly by just copying the entire file tree to the new box?

Thanks for your time

[devils casper]

create an image of harddisk through PartImage. it creates a bootable image.
there may be a lot of other ways. but i prefer PartImage for creating ready-to-use image.





casper

[smolloy]

I use "dar" to backup my system every night. Dar is a disc based archival tool that can compress as many files as you want (I use it to back up my entire filesystem), and allows you to specify all the details of the backup,
Do you want the data compressed, and, if so, how?
How many "slices" do you want the backup to be in? (for example, ask it to chop the backup into 4GB slices if you want to burn it to DVD, or just as one big slice if you're gonna keep it on another hard drive.)
Do you want any files ignored? (for example, I tell it not to backup /sys or the partition that actually contains the backups)

It also has a differential mode that compares the current state of the filesystem to a previous backup, and only saves files that have changed or been created since the reference backup was created.

In the event of a loss of data, it allows you to retrieve either the entire backup, or individual files.

You should have a look at its man page for more details, and then you go about including it in a small shell script that could be run as a cron job. I found a script online that creates a new backup directory for each month, and (on the first day of the month) creates the reference directory. On each day after this it creates a differential backup based on this, thereby keeping the backup time small.

Let me know if you'd like me to post the script.



EDIT: Wow Casper!! You are FAST!!!

[william5271]

Thanks for your time guys. I am still new to linux and am wondering how hard it would be to set up dar? I need something that is open source so dar looks like the one I should use. Is dar easy to learn?

William

[devils casper]

i dont know about 'dar' but 'PartImage' is also OpenSource.









casper

[smolloy]

Dar is easy and should already be available on your computer. Try "man dar" to see if it is and see how it works.

I've attached a text file that I run as a cron job every night. On the first day of every month it creates a fresh backup of the entire file-system, and every night after that it creates a differential backup based on that. It stores each of these in a separate folder, so you can keep backups going back for months (if you have the storage space!).

You'll have to edit it a little in order to get it working on your machine (paths and mount points, etc.), but it should be easy enough for you to use.

[devils casper]

I've attached a text file that I run as a cron job every night. On the first day of every month it creates a fresh backup of the entire file-system, and every night after that it creates a differential backup based on that. It stores each of these in a separate folder, so you can keep backups going back for months (if you have the storage space!).

Wow ! thanx for the info and script.






casper

[smolloy]

Wow ! thanx for the info and script.

No problem, but I guess I should be honest and point out that I found the script online, and just editted a little to suit my needs. I wish I was good enough at shell scripting to claim credit for writing it, but, alas, my skills aren't that good.