Les Mikesell wrote: : Dean S. Messing wrote: : > craigni wrote: : > <snip : > : I'm getting enamored of rsync to the point where I think that's the : > : backup strategy I'd like to use <snip> : I think the OP was looking for an easy way to do a complete restore, : though. `rsnapshot' and `dirvish' provide this, I think[1]. Otherwise these backup systems would be pretty useless if one had a RAID0 array failure and lost one's entire system. The very first "snapshot" one takes is a copy of the system on a single filesystem[2] (so that hardlinking will work). Each backup thereafter creates the entire system dir structure again within the same filesystem, except using hardlinks for stuff that's remained the same since the last backup. The delta space increase is therefore small. If one needs to do a full restore, one merely runs `rsync' from latest snapshot back onto the system disk, re-install the bootloader and boot. [1] Confession: I'm just getting this going for the first time so I've not actually done a restore yet but that's the way it is supposed to work. [2] The "single filesystem" should be on a separate physical disk or system which is not part of one's system RAID array or LVM structure. You don't want to lose your backups if your system dies. : One of the easiest would be to download the bootable iso for : clonezilla live (http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/clonezilla-live) : which will save compressed disk/partition images to local/nfs/smb/ssh : locations and knows enough about linux and ntfs filesystems to only save : the used portions. On restore, it will re-create the partions, copy back : the contents and make the disk bootable for you. This sounds nice. I'm not sure if either of the applications I menioned remember the partition structure. One may have to do the partitioning separately. It's good to save a copy of `fdisk -l' and `vgdisplay -v' with each backup, I suppose. Does clonezilla remember Logical Volume or Software Raid info and re-create it too? Dean
