On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 11:14:45AM +0100, Tomáš Skočdopole wrote: > Hi, > Please don't top post. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
(more comments below) > If you have more space on your backup harddrive, > the easiest way is use some liveCD and backup the whole harddrive. > You should do with this command: > dd if=/dev/sda | gzip > /mnt/path/to/image.gz > And command for restore > gzip -dc /mnt/path/to/image.gz | dd of=/dev/sda > > Or you can backup only MBR > dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/path/to/mbr_image count=1 bs=512 > And restore: > dd if=/mnt/path/to/mbr_image of=/dev/sda > > And copy files from /dev/sda* manually. > > Tomas > > > 2009/1/29 Ryan Isaacs <[email protected]>: > > I have a fresh LFS 6.4 installation, all I've done is add 1 user. Is > > there a preferred way to back it up (and restore)? > > > > Would it be sufficient to just use the liveCD, mount my paritition, > > and 'cp -ar', or do I need to do something more arcane like 'dd'? > > > > Thanks > > Using 'dd' for backups and restores scares me. Also, I thought it would copy the raw data, so that the restored version would have the same filesystem and be exactly the same size ? If you _do_ use dd as either the root user or a member of the 'disk' group, backing up the MBR is probably a good idea. Personally, I haven't backed up the MBR since I last used an AmigaOne (for that, I had to use dd to write the new kernel to the disk - all too easy to make mistakes). For most of us, it's easier to use tar. Among other things, that will allow you to restore only a single file, or to 'restore' all of the data to a different place, or a different underlying filesystem type. After tarring up the filesystem or data, you can then copy it to CD or DVD. You can also copy it to a usb stick if that suits you (the files in the gzipped or bzip2'd tarball will maintain their wnerships and permissions even though the tarball itself is on a FAT filesystem). For general backups, I use a rough and ready system of scripts based on rsync over nfs to a 'staging' area (with a flag to indicate if the backup completed - they're run from fcrontab, but I might switch the machine off while it is backing up), with a separate rsync to my equivalent of Generation Data Groups [1] on RAID1. Some of the underlying backups are then tarred up and written to tape (for data) or DVD (for root filesystems). Most people probably don't need this much overhead and it doesn't solve all the problems (in my case, the tape drive I chose is now obsolete). However you choose to do this, think about what sorts of problems you want to address (deleted files, changes that turn out to be undesirable, disk failure, ...) and how you will restore (for reverting undesirable changes, you also need to consider how you will identify which files to revert if you are not rolling back to a previous version of the system or directory). The 'policies' for backing up user data and the system itself are usually different, which is one reason why a separate filesystem for /home can be helpful (it also simplifies building your next LFS when the current system reaches its best-before date). ĸen 1. For an explanation of the real thing, see http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/basics/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.zos.zconcepts/zconcepts_175.htm My attempt is considerably sketchier, and doesn't use the '(0)' '(+1)' or '(-1)' identifiers which make GDGs such a boon in JCL. -- das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
