Server Failed please help

rboocock · 03-09-2006, 01:33 PM

Hi

I am an ict technician in schools and one of the linux servers has been hit by an electrical surge and its damaged the main disk and the hardware. The system is, no was set up with mandiva 2005 with the main operating system on one drive and the user data on another.

The user data appears ok but the operating system is damaged, it will boot to the prompt but has so many errors I would not know where to start and the hardware cannot be trusted now.

I have managed to get another computer up and running with debian as the operating system and want to know what files I have to transfer to make the new computer into the new version of the old one.

I have changed distros because mandriva keeps dying when you do updates and that no good for a server.

Please could you help I am not a linux expert and any other advice on how to make the process go smoothly would be appreciated.

Thanks for all your help.

Richard

youngstorm · 03-09-2006, 01:46 PM

Hi,

I would not suggest using old files to build your new server. Mandriva and Debian are very different distros and versions of deamons could also be different enough as to make using the same config files not possable. You may be able to use some config files but I need more info first.

What is the purpose of this server? web, email, ftp, etc.?

Have you got all user data backed up??

Michael

pljvaldez · 03-09-2006, 01:48 PM

Well, I think you're probably going to have your work cut out for you. What you need to do is figure out what all the services were that were running on your Mandrake box (i.e. ssh, apache, ftp, etc) and then try to find the config files (usually in /etc). Copy the config files to a temporary directory somewhere as you'll want to refer to them when setting up your new box.

You'll also have to setup the fstab to point to your user data drive...

Installing the services you want will be pretty easy. Just apt-get install packagename for each packagename you want. It'll handle all the dependencies. But you'll have to go through and manually copy the config files (make backups of the debian originals) or manually editing the config files so they look similar. Use apt-cache search string1 and string2 to find what program you're looking for. Use apt-cache show packagename to see more details about the package.

Also, for Debian, you can look at http://aboutdebian.com/ to help you set up a lot of services. Good luck!

pljvaldez · 03-09-2006, 01:51 PM

Oh yeah, after you get your debian server setup the way you want. At the very least do a

Code:

dpkg --get-selections > selections_todaysdate.txt

and save the output file to a safe location. YOu can later restore your debian system (less all the config files) by

Code:

dpkg --set-selections < selections_todaysdate.txt
dselect update
apt-get dselect-upgrade

This is also an easy way to clone a system that has different hardware. Alternatively, make an exact copy of your system with dd or partimage so you can always restore it at a later date...

rboocock · 03-10-2006, 02:08 PM

Sorry for the delay.

The server is a Primary Domain controller and runs samba, it is also the main file server for the school and acts as a web server with apache, php, mysql. Clamav used to run every night to detect viruses.

I know to paackages will not be the same but I would appreciate a list of files to copy onto the new box like the smb.conf, freshclam.conf. I have all the user data and the netlogon and a copy of the etc folder on the second data hard drive. Have I missed anything?

As ar as I understand it once I intstall the correct packages and copy the configuration files into place then the computer should run as before.

Thanks for all your help.

Richard

pljvaldez · 03-10-2006, 02:57 PM

It should run okay, but you may not be able to directly copy the config files over. Debian is different enough that the config files might be different formats. So you'll probably have to manually edit each one, but keep the ones from your old box handy so you can at least transpose the settings.

I'm not aware of config files living other places than etc, but I guess I've never really checked...