On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 09:54:25AM -0500, Jacob Ramirez wrote:
> We are running linux with Debian OS. I am new to using linux and
> debian. Can I use an external hard drive to backup the operating system
> and files on our linux servers? If so, how do I create a full backup of
> the system for disaster recovery? Is it easy to restore if there is a
> need?
> Is there documentation somewhere that I can read that explains how to do
> this? Thanks for your help in advance.
There are many ways to do backups. Here's how I do it.
1. look at what I need to restore from scratch: netinst media for
the current OS (Etch) for the current archetecture (i386 and
amd64).
2. To what data do I need instant access even in the event of
catastrophy? Put it in plain text in a directory of the backup
media (CD, disk, USB stick, whatever).
3. To what data do I need access in order to install successfully?
For me its things like /etc/network/interfaces, ppp configs and
chatscripts (dial-up internet), /etc/hosts, /etc/inittab. Put
this in plain text in a directory on the backup media.
4. .tgz tarball of /etc
5. Partition info: output of /sbin/fdisk -lu and /sbin/sfdisk -d
for each drive. Also output of
du -c -si --max-depth=1 /*
df --si
Save as plain text on the backup media.
6. Both a list of manually installed packages and all installed
packages. Output of:
dpkg --get-selections
aptitude search `~i!~M'
7. /boot/grub/menu.lst
8. Copy my own list of hardware, instalation logs (what I did to
get something working).
9. tarball that includes:
/etc/, /usr/local/, /root/, /var/local/, /home/
but excudes:
/var/local/bacup/
All this gets saved to /var/local/backup/$HOSTNAME and then gets saved
to various media (mostly CD and USB stick). You could also use a
removable hard drive. You want a filesystem that can be read by most
computers/os, which means vfat.
I don't backup the whole system since everything that I don't backup
belongs to dpkg. If you want to have a backup of all the debs, I'd
suggest that you create an apt-proxy repository on your removeable
drive.
Good luck.
Doug.
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