how to do system backup for redhat linux 5

[apple]

dear Linux gurus,
we are running linux redhat enterprise 5 running on proliant server. how to do system backup? we have dvd ram. hope to hear from you.

[Jeeshan]

acronis true image used to take OS or file system backup.

another tools used like mondorescue and clonezilla.

[apple]

we don't hv tape drive attached to our proliant server. can we use dvd or cd? thank you sir.

[apple]

we hv data protector. hv u tried to use data protector bare metal recovery?

[Gokul Chandola]

Hi,
Please read the following doc and link, will be helpfull to your query...

www.redhat.com/f/pdf/rhel/critical_data.pdf

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/admin-guide/

Regards,
Gokul Chandola

[smatador]

Hi,
Two very good soft mondorescue & mkcdrec
http://www.mondorescue.org/
http://mkcdrec.ota.be/
You could use the bare metal image of mkcdrec with the DP product for example and afterthat use DP to restore all files.

[Keith Matthews]

One last point - TEST that backup before you rely on it.

This is especially true with CD/DVD media - they have a reputation in some quarters of not being too reliable.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

I use acronis trueimage. It costs money, but is the best tool I ever used.

http://acronis.com

Also:
http://mondorescue.org

Open source.

SEP

[Robert Walker_8]

Gday,

A simple solution would be to compress dump using standard linux dump command.

touch /etc/dumpdates (if not already defined)
dump -0 -F 64 -z 9 f /backup/root.dmp.Z /

upon completion copy /backup/root.dmp.Z to DVD using dvdrecord or something.

You can then have incrementals of dump -1, -2, -3 etc etc all in a script.

The other of course is during a system outage ghost the system or as those said above.

I have used dump with compression option and using SSH to dd it to a remote server without drama and used it to restore to virtual machine (XEN HVM) without too much drama. So dump will do the job, you can use the RHEL recovery option plus a bit of work to get you back from bare metal - although GHOST and other such products are quicker to work with!

Robert.

[Steven McCoy]

I am just curious. I've typically setup nightly tarballing of /etc, /home, and role-secific filesystems (/var/spool/mail for mailservers, etc) then rsync those to a centralized server (typically connected to SAN). I then copy snapshots of those backups to an off-site solution (tape, DVD-R, external usb drive, etc).

Is there anything unrecommended about my current backup solution? Granted, this is not a 'bare metal' type of solution, but when I can roll out a server (on a per-role basis) in less than 25 minutes via kickstart, restoring config files and user data isn't much extra time/work.

I'm wondering if I should check out mondo rescue and start using that for clients. Other than 'bare metal' restore, what else might it have that my current solution does not satisfy?

[Robert Walker_8]

Steven,

That should work - depends upon the environment. DUMP will (when used with RESTORE) restore the file system complete as it was at the time of the DUMP - if you only need sections then tar and rsync work effectively well.

I also run rsync on /etc to a staging server in case of needing to correct a mistake or whatever.

Cant have enough paranoia and backups when keeping systems running :)

Robert.