How to Take Snapshot of the Complete Linux Server?

your_shadow03 · 07-06-2009, 02:07 AM

I have SVN Running with various Projects on Fedora 9 and I need to take snapshot of the entire OS. Anyone who can suggest?

bhaslinux · 07-06-2009, 03:59 AM

is your SVN directories running in a partition which is running
1. LVM ?
you can use lvcreate -s (see man) which creates a snapshot of the volume
2. xfs
you can use xfs_dumpfs which takes a dump of the complete FS
3. ext2/ext3
you can use dump DUMP(8) to backup (incrementally even) the complete FS
3. others
you can just do a tar backup of the whole FS and restore it when needed !

bhaslinux · 07-06-2009, 04:00 AM

sorry ... xfs_dumpfs is to be read as xfsdump

your_shadow03 · 07-06-2009, 04:08 AM

Thanks for the advise.
I have the following LVM Filesystem Created on mY fedora machine:

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                       30G  9.5G   19G  34% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol07
                      6.8G  144M  6.4G   3% /opt
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol04
                      9.6G  8.3G  895M  91% /usr
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol06
                      3.0G  830M  2.0G  29% /usr/local
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol03
                      2.0G  105M  1.8G   6% /tmp
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol05
                      5.9G  3.9G  1.8G  69% /var
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
                       15G  7.7G  6.0G  57% /home
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1     190M   13M  169M   7% /boot
tmpfs                1014M   96K 1014M   1% /dev/shm

I have SVN server running on /svn/repos/sandbox.What commands I need to run for the Backup.

your_shadow03 · 07-06-2009, 04:10 AM

Also,If lvcreate -s backup the LVM How to restore it in another Machine.

bhaslinux · 07-06-2009, 05:38 AM

ok
backup-restore is different and snapshot is different.
The best way to backup and restore the system is to tar it up fully and expand it
i will do it this way

create the directory in which your SVN sources needs to be present
mount it in the source machine and then just copy off the whole dir.
or tar the SVN root fully and transfer it by network and expand it in the 2nd system...

or you can use rsync to sync the complete tree to the other machine over ssh.

your_shadow03 · 07-06-2009, 05:50 AM

The SVN Directory /svn/repos/sandbox is a simply a directory which doesnt have the project as its encrypted and binary format. How Can it be possible to create entire tar of the directory?

luisduenas · 07-06-2009, 02:16 PM

Use the "dd" command, you can even take snapshot the mbr.

cyclegar · 07-06-2009, 02:27 PM

I have used ghost for linux (g4l) and its wonderful and easy to use and its uses dd.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

Thanks
M Cycegar