Linux System restore

[John Guster]

what is the quickest doable way to restore redhat linux to its original stage after patch bundle apply fails? It is HP Proliant H/W.

[Ivan Krastev]

Use the backup tools - http://www.clonezilla.org/

Mondorescue - http://www.mondorescue.org/

regards,
ivan

[Ivan Ferreira]

You could also consider using mirroring features. In that case, you can break the mirror befor applying the patches, and boot from the mirror if something goes wrong.

[Court Campbell]

mondorescue to the rescue. it's awesome.

[John Guster]

we are not allowed to install any open source software: http://www.clonezilla.org/ or Mondorescue - http://www.mondorescue.org/.
What we have is one RAID 1 disk to start with. It is not software mirroring. So break the mirror involves lot of down time. We do have a full tape backup. Is it possible one boot from previous kernel, and then perform a full tap ebackup restore?

[Court Campbell]

>> we are not allowed to install any open source software

I know this is not your doing, but this statement is always ridiculous IMO. I had someone tell me that once and I said that we shouldn't be running Linux, if that's the case. All Linux distros are made up of opensource projects.

If it's a support issue, you can look on the support page. HP has support services available for mondorescue.

You can check out acronis. I am not a fan of it, but it's a paid product.

[Court Campbell]

You could use dd to make a full disk backup before the patches. Then if you have an issue, you could boot from a rescue disk and use dd to restore the disk.

[Ivan Ferreira]

>>> We do have a full tape backup. Is it possible one boot from previous kernel, and then perform a full tap ebackup restore?

No, you cannot restore your full backup with a kernel running from your destination disk. You can boot from the installation media and then restore your full backup to the disks so there is no any open files during restore.

[loco_vikide]

John,

There is a good commercial product called Storix that meets your needs. It has Enterprise Centralize maanagement capability. It was developed by a guy who designed and wrote NIM software (system backup/recovery/deployment tool) on AIX (IBM Unix).

Cheers