Disaster Recovery Backup (Bootable) for Linux ?

[MacFaza]

Hi!

I´m running SuSe Linux 7.3 (i386) in an IBM Netfinity (Intel) server.
Actually is running pretty fine, but i do need to implement a backup policy, and perhaps mandatory, a disaster recovery solution.

What do i mean with this ?
In other platforms i have a bootable tape or a bootable diskette set that let me connect to a backup server or see a local tape drive to restore the COMPLETE operating system.
I could do this in AIX with MKSYSB and in Windows NT/2000 with ARCserve 2000 and Disaster Recovery Module.

Does Linux has anything not commercial to do something similar ?
The backup unit could be a DDS-3 or 4, or a CD-RW.

Thanks
Gustavo ---
Gustavo Faza
e-M@il: GustavoFaza@Yahoo.com.ar

 

[svar]

You can boot from the Suse CDs 1 and 2(not sure about 7.3,
you can check,but I can certainely do it in Suse 8 and pretty sure it works from 7.3 too). Other than this, you
have a number of options.
1) Do you have another backup server?
If so, you can backup there(connect by say ftp or whatever
and have automatic scripts to do the backup)
You can also use mirroring(this is not the same as backup though and corresponds to different requirements
2) You can also use a JAzz or CD-burner
3) Another option is what I have done: I have 2 disks on the PC. On one of them I have Suse6.2 which is the
old and tested and in the other one the newest kernel
I have configured lilo so you can boot from either one
and take backups from the new to the old.
e.g. ,mnt /dev/hda1 /mnt/root
cp ... /mnt/root

....


This is very convenient, but does not protect you for example if your PC or your house burns down, of course.

good luck,
svar

 

[Morsing]

Hi,
I've been looking for the same thing, beeing used to mksysb in AIX, but I don't think anyhthing for Linux works as easily as mksysb.

To bad. Maybe we need to make it ourselves

Cheers Henrik Morsing
IBM Certified AIX 4.3 Systems Administration