Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 11:37:07 -0400 From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu> To: Jason Lixfeld <jason+lists.freebsd-questions@lixfeld.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Backup advice Message-ID: <20070524153707.GC4322@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <C8C214C7-A11A-489E-83C1-0C81EB3564C8@lixfeld.ca> References: <28E0DBBA-BB24-4D6B-AE65-07EB5254025C@lixfeld.ca> <23E233D0-EBD1-4779-8334-8124031CDD64@lafn.org> <C8C214C7-A11A-489E-83C1-0C81EB3564C8@lixfeld.ca>
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On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 10:03:40PM -0400, Jason Lixfeld wrote: > > On 23-May-07, at 9:23 PM, Doug Hardie wrote: > > >The criteria for selecting a backup approach is not the backup > >methodology but the restore methodology. > > Excellent point. > > Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question, so let me try it this way > instead: > > I'm looking for a backup solution that I can rely on in the event I > have a catastrophic server failure. Ideally this backup would look > and act much like a clone of the production system. In the worse > case, I'd re-format the server array and copy the clone back to the > server, setup the boot blocks, and that would be it. > > Ideally this clone should be verifiable, meaning I should be able to > verify it's integrity so that it's not going to let me down if I need > it. > > I'm thinking external USB hard drive of at least equal size to the > server array size as far as hardware goes, but I'm lost as far as > software goes. Sounds like you are not quite as critical as the other post - somewhere in between. If you want an immediately available clone, then the best thing is to have an identical machine, preferably off-site and maintain it as a clone, probably using rsync, although you can reasonably use dump/restore for that too. If you need calls for just being back up in a reasonable length of time then you might prefer dumping to some media and if the need comes to restore, then you would have to recreate the disk structure - using fdisk, bsdlabel and newfs from the fixit image on the install CD or use sysinstall to run them for you. (I suggest that any serious System Manager become familiar with fdisk, bsdlabel and newfs, even if you usually let sysinstall handle them for you) Then you would use restore to pull the dumps back in. If your system is super critical as Doug Hardie posted about his, then you may want to use some combination of rsync-ing to a close and making dumps and consider storing some of these off-site. ////jerry > > Any advice appreciated. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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