On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 3:57 PM, Dominic Raferd <[email protected]>wrote:
> Wei, Xiaohai wrote: > >> >> I want to backup a whole linux system to windows for restoring the system >> from windows to linux later. >> >> I successfully installed native rdiff-backup on windows xp and it can >> backup linux data to windows folder. >> But it seems failed if there is symlink in the linux system. Error >> information attached at the end. >> >> I want to know: >> 1. I want to backup all the information of the linux system to windows and >> so i can restore the OS(not only data) to linux later. I think the >> information includes user/group/permission etc. At first i want to use rsync >> to do so but found rsync can not do it. and I found that rdiff-backup will >> use meta-data to keep such information, so I assume it can do so. correct me >> if I am wrong. >> >> 2. If i can get what I need with rdiff-backup, what should I do? >> >> Thanks, James >> > I don't believe rdiff-backup is able to do this on its own; rdiff-backup > suits a situation in which you want to backup data (not whole system) and to > do so repeatedly (e.g. day after day), and be able to recover data from > earlier backups as well as from the latest one. Even if rdiff-backup can > backup your whole system it cannot easily restore it. To restore a system > you need to be able to boot up in a temporary OS, do the partitioning and > formatting of the (new) system disk etc etc (and then copy all the system > files and data), rdiff-backup is not designed to do this. > > If you want to backup a whole linux system for easy restoring, then I > suggest you look at a package designed for this purpose. I use mondo > http://www.mondorescue.org - and it doesn't need Windows. You can create a > backup on a flash drive, take this to a different machine, boot it and > restore your old system to the new hardware. It offers differential backups, > but not the 'history' magic that is rdiff-backup's special trick. > > I suggest you use both: mondo to backup your system (excluding your own > data files, because these may be too big for a flash disk), and then > rdiff-backup [over a network to another machine] for your data files. mondo > only needs to be run occasionally, rdiff-backup you should run frequently > (e.g. as daily cron job). When disaster strikes, use mondo to recover your > system and then rdiff-backup to recover your data. And of course if you need > the data from one week or one month or even one year ago, rdiff-backup will > oblige. > > HTH > > Dominic > > > Dominic, thanks for your reply. I have a solution to recover from disaster which can restore the system to factory default. After that, I want to restore the system to latest or earlier version. I can achieve it in linux <-> linux way. I can back up the whole system to a Linux host and then restore later. It works. But came to Windows, problems happened. As the linux system I am working for is a mobile device, and users need to backup the device to a host machine, which usually is a windows machine. So I am seeking a solution to backup the linux system to windows. If there are only data files, it is relatively easy, there are many solutions for it. but I want to design the feature similar with Apple's Time Machine. I want to restore the system to earlier state, not only the data, but also application/application config etc. So I need to backup/restore the whole Linux system files to/from Windows system. Thansk James
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