System wide backup

bkeating · 04-13-2003, 09:44 PM

So i run a small phpBB message board and ftp... It's an old computer and ready to die - i can jsut tell.. I heavily modified phpBB when i did so, i did it very messy-like. So i was wondering (because i've never done this before)

could i copy ALL the hard drives contents to another harddrive? as in EVERYTHING.. basically mirroring it?

I'd hate to weed through phpBB and the other modified software and backup the peices i need by hand.

any efficient, fast, durable solutions/comments welcome

jimrt · 04-14-2003, 01:16 PM

I would recommend using a program like norton ghost to copy your drives contents to a new hard drive. There are alternative program that will also do this, I just can't remember their names.

david_ross · 04-14-2003, 01:21 PM

Try using rsync. It works on local systems and over a network.

Set a new server up then on the old pc:
rsync -acvz /home/httpd NewServer:/home

Replace NewServer with the ip of the new server. and /home/httpd with the location of the data files.

You will also want to copy your mysql data to the new server.

david_ross · 04-14-2003, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jimrt
I would recommend using a program like norton ghost to copy your drives contents to a new hard drive. There are alternative program that will also do this, I just can't remember their names.

If you want an imaging solution then check out partimage:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/partimage

yngwin · 04-14-2003, 02:30 PM

For very basic mirroring you could use dd, but your best bet is probably partimage.

bkeating · 04-15-2003, 03:26 AM

thank you.

So simply copying over the MySQL stuff wont break anything? THis is what im afraid of the most, as I don't understand MySQL fully atm

david_ross · 04-15-2003, 01:05 PM

It didn't for me - I have 2 IDENTICAL servers at work and I just rsync the /var/lib/mysql directory and my phpBB works fine.