LinuxQuestions.org - Backing up bsds and linux

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Backing up bsds and linux

Hi
I want to backup my OpenBSD, Freebsd, MacBook and Linux completely all on the same external usb hard-drive(which is a 1 TB drive).
So should i create a partition, using disk-utility, for HFS+. Then use fdisk for allocating space/creating slices using OpenBSD and then FreeBSD. Then use cfdisk to create partitions for Linux. Then use timemachine to backup the MacBook. Then use:

Code:

#dump -OLauf /usb-drive/mount/point /dev/ad0s1a

and repeat this for my BSD filesystems. First doing this onto the first fdisk slice i created, for, say, OpenBSD. Then doing the same to put filesystems on the second fdisk slice i created, for FreeBSD?.
Then use:

Code:

tar cvpzf backup.tgz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tgz --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

And then move backup.tgz to external drive.
I would have to know the exact size of the fdisk slices for the BSDs.But i could find that out easily through fdisk.
Also would i have to use fdisk for the linux backup.tgz, or could i just put this file straight on the external usb drive?.
Please could someone tell me the best way to do this?. I already know how to do it over the network(sending all filesystems to the MacBook, which has the external usb drive mounted on it's filesystem). I would like to know how to do it straight onto the external usb drive, for all these systems. This way i would have more than one method at my disposal and could choose which way to do it, now and in the future.
After the systems have all been copied to the external drive i will use rsync to only back up the parts of each filesystem that have changed. I just need to know if the method i plan to use is correct? etc...
Thank you very much for your time. Thankx for any replies too.

In case you're wondering. I just want a way of returning to a known good system in the event of a serious mishap. I don't need clones for forensics, just a way of having the original systems recovered.
Thankx

Would Clonezilla meet your needs? I have only used on/for Linux, but:

From http://www.clonezilla.org/:

Quote:

Filesystem supported: (1) ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs of GNU/Linux, (2) FAT, NTFS of MS Windows, (3) HFS+ of Mac OS, (4) UFS of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, and (5) VMFS of VMWare ESX. Therefore you can clone GNU/Linux, MS windows, Intel-based Mac OS, and FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, no matter it's 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x86-64) OS. For these file systems, only used blocks in partition are saved and restored. For unsupported file system, sector-to-sector copy is done by dd in Clonezilla.

As far as the issue of having all of those differents FS's goes, I suggest formatting it with 1 FS and exporting it via NFS (AFP is better for Time Machine in my experience, but a single FS can still be exported as both) thus creating a virtual FS that all 3 OS's can read/write to/from. As far as the actual backing program goes, I hear that rsync is good as it only backups what it needs to rather than everything on your disk. The method that I use personally is tar cvjpf 201103040211system.backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/ --exclude=/backup --exclude=foo / and compress it with bzip2 -9.