Hello,

I have what I hope is an easy question.

What is the proper way to perform a full backup of a system running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4) so that it can be fully restored in the event of a disaster?

I am looking for a native solution that doesn't require me to buy anything like Backup Exec.


For example, on a Solaris system I would simply...

1) perform a level 0 "ufsdump" of each file system each week.

2) When the system needed to be restored, I would boot from the Solaris install CDROM into single-user mode

3) partition/newfs the disk appropriately

4) mount up each partition under "/a" located on the CDROM (ie /a, /a/usr, /a/var)

5) perform a "ufsrestore" for each partition

6) install the boot-block

7) reboot and I'm done.


I have been doing this flawlessly for 5 years now. Is there a similar way to do this with RHEL4?

I did take a RHEL4 training course and when I asked the instructor about this, he said to just reinstall the OS, run up2date, and restore config files and data from backup.

Not the answer I was hoping for, especially since we use a rigid "baseline" of specific versions of packages, drivers, etc.

I've looked but the best I could come up with is a "tar" solution.


(Sorry, I tried to include a link to a doc explaining this, but I need to make 3 posts before I can post URLS for the)

Maybe it's just me, but I have had enough shakey experiences with tar (problems with too many subdirectories) to not trust it for

mission-critical restores.


Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Mike

The easy answer is to create/use a bootable/live CD/DVD and use something like parted or partimage to backup/restore, for example; http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page