Thanks for all the info.... i really appreciate it... So i am wondering then if its just not the best and quickest in the end to simply install a basic system via Debian's net install ad then restore backuppc over that? as that only takes 20 mins or so....
But another quick question is i have a raid mirror, does this affect anything t a great deal? Should i be more careful with anything? Thanks... Rob Morin Director of Technologies Dido Internet Inc. Montreal,Canada http://www.dido.ca 514-990-4444 Les Mikesell wrote: > Rob Morin wrote: >> If possible i would like to hear more talk on doing something like >> the restore from live distro as doing reliable and non time >> consuming images is a bitch... Are there any docs or detailed >> procedures on how to restore to a blank hard drive via a complete >> back up. I backup up "/" except for the afore mentioned /proc /tmp >> bla bla ... but what would a recommend live cd be? I use Debian Etch >> for instance.... > > Knoppix is usually considered the ultimate live cd in terms of > hardware detection and included features but you need to make sure > that it knows about all the same LVM options, etc. that you are using > elsewhere. The process can vary wildly depending on the system you > are restoring and the disk layout and boot setup it needs. Basically > you have to fdisk, possibly set up LVMs, mkfs and mount something that > looks like the original filesystems by hand with the livecd tools, > then tell backuppc to deliver a tar image which you extract wherever > you mounted what will be the root filesystem - you can do that via ssh. > > I recently found something that might make it a lot easier with a > little work up front: > http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/clonezilla-live/. > Clonezilla is intended to do mass-cloning of PXE-booted machines over > a network. It would work for this purpose but takes some > infrastructure setup that might not be available when you need to > restore. Clonezilla-live is a variation that can be booted from CD or > USB drives and in the USB case can store/load the images directly on > the device. > I'm just starting to test this myself, but I think a handy approach > would be to get a laptop-drive based external USB device (these are > very small, run from USB power, and come in sizes up to 250 gigs now), > follow the instructions for making a bootable USB clonezilla-live from > the link above, and periodically make image copies of the target > machines if there are times you can take them down for a few minutes. > Then if you need to restore from bare metal, boot from the usb drive > and drop in the latest copy you've saved which will include your ssh > keys so you can put back anything newer from backuppc. There are > several other options, like making bootable CD's or DVD's that include > one or more images to restore, or mounting nfs/smb/sshfs network > filesystems for the image storage. With ntfs and most linux > filesystems,it knows enough to save only the used blocks so it is > fairly fast. > > Perhaps someone could eventually combine the tools so backuppc could > use the same format for the disk layout description and mbr (would > need client side support or some ssh'd commands to get) and be able to > rebuild the disks automatically with the same tools. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list [email protected] List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
