hi all

i am searching a way to backup a server (running apache2 & ssh only). i would like something better from a simple tar backup... I would like to backup the whole hdd in a way so if it crash , i get a new hard disk, i copy the image to the hard disk it i get the server running back (theoritically) with the minimum effort!

Can i do it using dd? I copy the hdd but is possible to copy later the image to the new (probably) bigger hard disk and then resize the partitions?

Is possible to do something like this?
Can i achieve this somehow?

Regards
Thanks

What's wrong with tar? That does exactly what you describe and is much better than dd.
You could also set up a rsync server.

Yes, but if my server crash how i will restore the files?
If i insert the hdd to an other linux, untar the files to the other hard disk, repair the mbr will work?
And how i will manage partitions??

take "tar" backup partitionwise.
ie. check ur /etc/fstab and find out which partitions are mounted on which directories. then take "tar" backup of all the directories seperately. then decide what is your backup media. on that media copy the tar archives.
create a copy of your partition table:

touch part.back
fdisk -l > part.back

if ur server crashes, then through a bootable floppy or perhaps
"knoppix cd" boot onto the new server.
create the same partition table by "fdisk".
then just restore the tar archives one by one onto the right partition.
if you have larger hdd, no prob. just make sure every partition is larger than than the old setup.

done