Remote Backup.

[Amit Dixit_2]

Hi,
I am having a RedHat Linux Server Version
5.3 (Apollo).

From Last 2 months i am having problem with
its dat drive.
Though i got it repaired few time it take
bakup for 2 times then again start giving
error of "Sequentail Position..."

I replaced the dat drive and go a new one
which worked fine the other Linux system
Version Redhat 9.0

Then I installed that dat drive on my older
linux and after two days i am again back to
the same problem.
Is there something wrong with my linux
box ??

How can I take the backup of /home folder
from my older linux to the newer one on dat
drive.

Yesterday i tried to take the backup on my
newer linux box hdb1 disk and i gave the
following command from the older linux box.

# tar cvf - ./home1 | ssh
MAILSERVER "/bin/dd of=/dev/hdb1"

After that when i gave ls -l on the
newerserver i saw that my hdb1 disk is
corrupted and it is showing filesystem error
how can i recvoer my disk.

Please anyone with suggestions to my
problems.

Thanks,
Amit.

[Mark Grant]

It may be that the drivers on the older box are not as good as they might be. You can NFS mount the directory you want to mount from the old box to the new one and back it up from there is you want.

Your second questions shows that you have completely broken the filesystem on hdb1. You shouldn't dd with an output file of a disk partition unless there is no filesystem it or you are dd a source that is a filesystem. dd of=filename is generally a better idea in these case.

[Amit Dixit_2]

Mark,
Is there anyway i can find out whether
the driver on my old linux are proper or
not.

What should be the command after
configuring NFS on older box, so that i
can backup my data on the newer linux
box dat drive.

Thanks,
Amit.

[Mark Grant · Accepted solution]

Amit

I am not sure about the driver on the old box, and it may not even be the driver, it could be the SCSI sub-system or one of several things. It might be worth installing the latest kernel on it.

However, usin NFS is easy. When it configured on your old box just create an /etc/exports file on the old machine with an entry in it that looks something like

/home hostB(rw,no_root_squash)

hostB will be the hostname of your newer machine. Then do "exportfs -a" from the old machine.

From the new machine create a directory called /oldmachine and then "mount hostA:/home /oldmachine". This will mount /home from your old machine onto /oldmachine on your new machine.

You would then back up /oldmachine using your favourite backup method.

e.g tar cvf /dev/st0 /oldmachine

[Amit Dixit_2]

Thanks Marks.
Well for the time being i will live with
the NFS solution only cannot afford to do
R&D with the kernel since that oldbox is
running sendmail and if something goes
wrong i will be kicked out...

Mark, please suggest me books or articles
from where i can increase my knowledge.

Thanks,
Amit.

[Mark Grant]

I can't really suggest any books for you as I don't think I ever read one :(

However, keep in touch with things like this forum, just read peoples posts and you'll learn a tremendous amount.