Re: [BackupPC-users] Debian / Ubuntu restore solution?

On 13/12/13 09:18, Adam Hardy wrote:

Les Mikesell on 12/10/2013 4:50 PM, wrote:

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom
<chrome AT real-time DOT com> wrote:

On 12/10 01:12 , Adam Hardy wrote:

What is the most effective approach for getting my system going on a
new hard drive with BackupPC running and the other server config
(gateway, DHCP, DNS etc)? Preferably without manually reconfiguring
each software package.

As I understand it, What you're looking to do is to clone the existing
installation to a new hard drive. This is pretty simple with Linux.

* Plug the new drive into the old system somewhere.

* Ideally, boot the system with a rescue CD such as Knoppix. This gives you
an OS to work with the system independent of the OS instance you're trying
to copy.

Another option would be to boot the 'clonezilla-live' CD.  It will
come up with a menu of options to save/restore images and can either
save an intermediate copy to files on a network or usb device for
subsequent restore or can work directly if you can get both drives
connected to the same host.   If the drive is not full, it may be
faster than using dd since it knows enough about most filesystems to
only copy the used blocks.   It will also reinstall grub for you and
has an option to expand the filesystems after the copy (although I
think it does this proportionally and you can't give one filesystem a
larger percentage of the space).

Excellent suggestions from everybody, thanks v. much.

If I understand correctly then in future, I should keep an up-to-date clone of my OS on a USB drive, and store my back-ups on another (I'm not a big enough operation to warrant tapes or raid arrays) as opposed to on the same drive?

My suggestion, which is not worth much....

You should save your data in at least three places, so I assume you are trying to save it to two, but both copies are on the same drive.

I would suggest the following:
One physical HDD has all your OS + Data for normal day to day use
One physical HDD has all your backuppc data (/var/lib/backuppc on debian/ubuntu)

Potentially, you have doubled your costs, but you have also doubled the chance of recovering *that* file you really needed. Now, most people would suggest RAID, but this depends on your "cost" of replacing the data. If you lose all your data, what will you do? If the answer is cry for 5 minutes and then carry on, then stop reading. If the answer is.... worse, then strongly consider:
1) Using RAID1 for the OS + Data, which is a total cost of one extra drive... Probably around $100.
2) Using RAID1 for the backuppc data... Again, probably around $100.
3) Use a second machine for the backuppc... Either use a spare you have around, or find someone who has an old PC, you can often get one for free from the right friend (I tend to collect old windows PC's when a friend/family member gets a new one, which works perfectly for something like backuppc). Total cost = the cost of electricity to power it, plus space to store it
4) Put the backuppc server in a different physical location, to protect against theft, fire, natural disaster, etc...

Each of the above will drastically improve your chances to recover data at *that* critical moment.

You personally may decide you only need one or two of the above (or none), but you should at least be aware of the risks you are taking. Similar to not getting insurance on your car..... It's a risk, but if you never crash, you will be fine :)

Regards,
Adam

--
Adam Goryachev Website Managers www.websitemanagers.com.au

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