I used to work with a guy that wrote the O'Reilly book on UNIX backup, W. Curtis Preston. He had some scripts for bare metal backups. He used basic old unix tools (CPIO et al).
Still bare metal backups and restores tend to be a dark art. Especially since we put more hardware configuration info into firmware/microcode than was done 'in the old days'(tm). Even different versions of microcode from the manufacturers in the 'same hardware', can make a difference. Yes, I have done it. It wasn't easy. Basics was: Cull out some additional storage you can boot from (not original location). Install the recovery OS on the additional storage, along with restore software. Restore into original hardware location. Shut down system. Remove the additional storage installed for the restore. Bring up and verify the restore. On an old VM system (IBM VM circa late '80s), we took tapes to a disaster recovery center in Philadelphia from Houston (and tapes from salt mines in Kansas). Once we got there, 12 hours to restore and verify (over the restore - users logged in to the network from Houston to verify their stuff worked!). It took 2 hours to re-format the disks with binary zeros after we shut down.) The tapes were shipped back to Kansas, and the small crew (about 10 people, operators, supervisors, and 4 system group folks) went to sleep and play tourist. We had a 48 hour shot and were done and out in 16. Folks from another data center showed up 24 hours into the time, and they never believed we even went there. Even though our users and the disaster data center folks said we were there). those guys never got a DR test to work. It did take us 3 official tries to get it right the first time. Like I said, it isn't easy, but it can be done. If you are going to do it. I suggest treat it like any systems development. Design it. Test it (till it works). Update it regularly and re-test it. And even if nothing changes, have another group of techies, take your documentation and test making it work without input from your 'backup/restore team'. ... Document it for not the common person off the street, but a reasonable level techie to do it. Your target audience for the restore test and documentation is they techie geek that will have to make it work after you and your team are run over by a bus. One day I might be able to write an answer without turning it into a historical diatribe... But it doesn't seem to work for me. I hope this helps someone! .... Jack On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 3:48 PM, Chris McQuistion <[email protected]> wrote: > http://relax-and-recover.org/ > > Just found this when I was looking for a "bare-metal" backup solution for > our critical Linux servers (and I didn't want to pay $500/server to > Unitrends for their bare-metal Linux backup.) > > We already have a full backup system in place for our virtual machines, > but the physical servers just have filesystem-level backup, not really a > "bare metal" backup that we could use to restore the entire system, in the > case of a failed hard drive or something. > > I got Relax and Recover (REAR) installed on a little test CentOS box and > it is a pretty sweet backup system. I can do a full restore of the server > from the original hard drive (via a separate bootloader that REAR installs) > or by booting up from a CD that REAR creates whenever a backup job runs. > > I've done test restores onto the original hard disk, onto a brand new, > slightly larger hard disk, and even restored the original physical machine > backup onto a VMware virtual machine, which worked perfectly. > > Anyone else use this system? Any input on it? I'm just getting my feet > wet with it, but I really like what I see. > > Chris > > -- > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "NLUG" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "NLUG" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- ><> ... Jack The Four Boxes of Liberty - "There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order." "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart"... Colossians 3:23 "Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein "You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people." - Admiral Grace Hopper, USN "The most dangerous phrase in the language is "We’ve always done it this way"-- Admiral Grace Hopper, USN "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." - Ben Franklin -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
