Re: Backup and Restore of Linux file system

Dances With Crows wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 17:13:40 +0100, Someone staggered into the Black Sun
> and said:
> >
> > are there simple steps to get a system back to the point of backup???
>
> Assuming you're using ext2 or ext3 (not ReiserFS):
>
> dump -0u -a -f /dev/st0 /dev/hda5
> (makes a full backup, automatically sized, to tape drive /dev/st0 (first
> SCSI tape) of partition /dev/hda5 )
>
> When you want to restore from backup:
> (boot from rescue system)
> mke2fs /dev/hda5
> mount /dev/hda5 /mnt/somewhere
> cd /mnt/somewhere
> restore rf /dev/st0
> (restores everything from the backup of /dev/hda5 you already made,
> using the first SCSI tape drive /dev/st0. Reboot. Bingo.)
>
> Some people don't like dump. No problem, you can do a very similar
> thing with tar or cpio, but you might have to reinstall LILO or GRUB
> manually.

If you're willing to shell out a little cash for BRU
(http://www.bru.com/) you can use it instead of 'dump' in the above
procedure. (It'll work regardless of filesystem, AFAIK. I use it for
ext2, ext3, and JFS.) You can use the same company's free CRU utility
to create a custom rescue disk that'll setup just about everything and
start restoring the backup from tape.

There are plenty of commercial products (in addition to the free and
commercial products already mentioned in this thread). Some of them
even offer versions "free for non-commercial use" or some such. Google
and Google Groups have plenty of information about "linux backup tape"
(without quotes) for example.