Submitted 18-Aug-00 by Norvell Spearman:
> 1) How do I make devices on a bootfloppy so ide-scsi will work from said
> bootfloppy? Using DrakFloppy, I created a disk and told it to pre-load
> ide-scsi, but the only devices on the floppy are /dev/hdb6 and /dev/fd0.
DrakFloppy does not create a rescue disk. It creates a "boot" disk
which will only function if everything but your boot loader (and/or
kernel) is ok.
The lilo configuration on it simply boots its onboard kernel and sets
the root device to your root partition (/dev/hdb6 in your case). In
case of a genuine disaster, you're SOL if you depended on that disk :(
Frankly, you should look into a micro-distribution (such as tomsrtbt)
for disaster recovery. But if you want to try homebrewing a rescue
disk, the answer to the question, assuming that the floppy is mounted as
/mnt/fd0:
mknod /mnt/fd0/dev/st0 9 0
will get you your SCSI tape device. You shoul look in /dev/ to see the
major and minor numbers for other devices (hd[ab], etc;)
> 2) I'm shooting for a ``painless'' recovery plan, so what is the best
> way to backup data (using only GNU tools that come with a common Linux
> distribution)? I'm thinking something like
> tar cvzpf /dev/st0 --exclude /proc /
> after unmounting the cdrom, floppy, and windoze
> partition.
That will work, but I'm not really sure I'd "like" using it. I use cpio
(when necessary) and afio (preferred). cpio is a GNU tool and should
come with every distro. afio has expanded features which allow it to
detect end of media and continue on the next. It frequently does _not_
come with distros.
One of the biggest advantages of these programs over tar is the explicit
file list used. A typical cpio command line might look like:
find -x / -print | cpio -odc | gzip > /dev/st0
(Yes, it might look complicated, but I'll explain.) find -x won't
decend into directories that are on other file systems. That means that
automatically /mnt/{windows,floppy,cdrom} are all excluded. If /home is
a separate partition it gets excluded (allowing you to make a separate
tape of it). This allows more control over what gets done each time.
Once you have your system up and running, frequently /, /boot (if
present as a partition) and /usr (but not /usr/local) are fairly static.
If they don't change, why back them up when all that has really changed
is user data? cpio, unlike tar and afio, doesn't have internal support
for gzip.
> 3) Which programs do I need on the boot floppy? fdisk, mke2fs, mount,
> umount, tar, gzip sound like good choices, but what else do I need?
cpio (as I mentioned above) and chroot are essential, IMHO. But,
hopefully, you'll look into a micro-distro that already has everything
you need. :)
> 4) Are these the steps to recovery I need to follow, or have I left out
> something?
> a) boot to floppy
> b) create partitions with fdisk
> c) recreate file systems with mke2fs
> d) mount new file systems (e.g., /mnt/, /mnt/home, /mnt/tmp, etc.)
> e) restore data from tape: cd /mnt; tar xzvpf /dev/st0
You *may* need to reboot betwwen b & c depending on your hardware.
> 5) lilo and grub: If I want to use lilo, all I have to do next is run
> `lilo /mnt/etc/lilo.conf' right? If I'm using grub, though, how do I
> update the mbr?
Actually, it would be lilo -C /mnt/etc/lilo.conf. But, after you have
done the restore, you can chroot /mnt /mnt/bin/bash and then simply run
LILO as normal.
For grub, after the chroot go to /boot/grub and execute sh ./install.sh
HTH
--
Anton Graham GPG ID: 0x18F78541
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> RSA key available upon request
I remember Ulysses well... Left one day for the post office to mail a
letter, met a blonde named Circe on the streetcar, and didn't come back for
20 years.
