On Thursday 07 May 2026 09:45:13 am Charles Curley wrote: > I don't have an ideal solution to your problem, but perhaps a partial > solution. > > https://www.charlescurley.com/Linux-Complete-Backup-and-Recovery-HOWTO.php
Looked that over, and there sure is a lot to it! I get the impression that there's a bunch of stuff in there that I probably don't need. > You do normal backups as usual. Backing up databases, virtual machines, > etc., with referential integrity is your problem. I have three machines here that I'm currently concerned with backing up. One is a server, two are workstations. Probably a laptop or two could be added to that list, but I don't use 'em that much. The server has an "html tree" that I've thrown a bunch of stuff at, a bunch of audio files, and a pile of miscellaneous stuff that I'm in the process of figuring out what to do with. This workstation has a virtual machine on it. I'm not sure how I'm gonna get that on to the other workstation here, my thinking is that moving away from virtualbox is probably a part of that plan. > This is a set of scripts that preserve partition and other meta information, > and a set of > scripts that restore that meta information. I'm not sure I see a need for that offhand. My inclination is to worry about backing up the data I want to keep and not worry too much about the operating system, though i suppose that time spent configuring stuff probably counts for something. > The current version has some problems and is out of date, but I am > slowly updating it. Anyway, take a look and see if the basic idea will > suit your purpose. Yeah, it's a little dated in some respects. I may have a zip drive out in the garage with a mess of other stuff, but I have no plans on using it for anything and very few disks for it. And parallel ports are getting scarce these days. There's another (syquest?) drive of some sort but capacity for that one is even lower. All three of the machines here have DVD burners in 'em, so finding something that'll span backups across multiple DVDs is probably what I need here. Do let us know when you get around to updating that, though. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin
