Networker

Re: [Networker] Disaster recovery plan using NetWorker

2008-04-17 06:03:54
Subject: Re: [Networker] Disaster recovery plan using NetWorker
From: Kenneth Holter <kenneho.ndu AT GMAIL DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:56:47 +0200
Hi.


We have successfully devised our own disaster recovery plan based on your
excellent outline. Thank you for the useful input.

I have, however, a couple of follup-up questions:
1) How do you go about collecting necessary information (such as partition
layout, LVM, networking, etc) for the backup'ed servers? I guess there
exists scripts or applications that can periodically collect such
information and store it somewhere "safe".
2) How can one ensure that when running the "recover" command, one retrieves
the last backup (including incremental updates) as opposed to merely the
last full backup?


Regards,

kenneho


On 3/17/08, Yaron Zabary <yaron AT aristo.tau.ac DOT il> wrote:
>
>
>  That is our Linux bare bone recovery HowTO (some of the thing are
> irrelevant, but it shows the basic procedure):
>
>    *  Boot from Alon's LiveCD (CentOS4.4_legato.iso). If recovering to a
> xen based guest the config will look like that:
>
>  boot = "d"
>  disk = [ "file:/images/repin.img,hda,w",
> "file:/root/CentOS4.4_legato.iso,hdc:cdrom,r" ]
>
>    * Use ifconfig eth0 to assign an IP address.
>    * Edit /etc/resolv.conf to add a nameserver and domain.
>    * Use fdisk to create partitions on your new hard disk (say /dev/hda1
> for linux and /dev/hda2 for swap):
>
> [root@repin ~]# fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 1274 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
>
>   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1             1      1095   8795556   83  Linux
> /dev/hda2          1096      1274   1437817+  82  Linux swap
>
>    * Use mkfs.ext2 (or mkfs.ext3) to create a new file system on the
> partition you created.
>    * Use mkswap on /dev/hda2.
>    * Mount the new partition.
>    * Start portmap:
>
> /etc/init.d/portmap start
>
>    * Start Legato's process:
>
> /bin/nsrexecd -s legato.tau.ac.il
>
>    * Use recover -c client-name -s legato.tau.ac.il to recover the system
> (add / and then relocate to the mount point you created). Notice that
> sometimes when there are other file systems on the system, they need to be
> recovered seprately, as the 'add /' will not select files not in the root
> file system.
>    * If you are trying to copy over a live machine (a-la P2V), you may use
> rsync to bring the files over. It is recommended that the following command
> will run when the source is in single user mode, and that you will manually
> mount all local file systems, ifconfig and sshd.
>
>  rsync -v -rptgolDH --delete --exclude=/proc root@manray:/ /r
>
>    * Use chroot to use the new file system as your root.
>    * Fix /etc/fstab to reflect possible changes in file system layout.
>    * Run mkdir /proc
>    * Use grub-install (or lilo) to install the boot loader. Make sure to
> fix /etc/grub.conf or /etc/lilo.conf to reflect changes to the disk layout.
>
> NOTES:
>
>    * If you recover on a different hardware, make sure to run 'kudzu' and
> reconfigure it.
>    * Update /etc/modprobe.conf (or /etc/modules.conf on older systems) if
> needed. Check in /etc/sysconfig/hwconf to know what modules are used for the
> newly found by kudzu devices.
>    * If the recovered system is much older than CentOS4, the newly
> generated file system might have "unsupported features" and fail to run
> fsck. In this case, before running fsck, the file system should be fixed -
> there's a need to run:
>
> debugfs -w /dev/hda1 -R "features ^resize_inode ^ext_attr"
>
>    * Some kernels might not have the kernel module for the Realtek 8139
> Ethernet card provided. This will require compilation of the kernel module:
>
> cd /usr/src/linux-2.4.23
> make menuconfig
>
> Choose to compile the modules for all Realtek 8139 related cards. Save the
> new configuration.
>
> make dep
> make modules
> make modules_install
>
> You may now run modprobe to see if the module is recognized.
>
>
>
>
>
> Kenneth Holter wrote:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> >
> > I'm new to the list, as well as new to NetWorker.
> >
> > We're using NetWorker to on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4/5 servers to
> > perform backup. I'm in need of a disaster recovery plan for our servers,
> > and
> > could need some advice on how to use NetWorker for this purpose.
> >
> > If a server chrashes or for some other reason goes down, I'll need to
> > replace the servers with a new one. Naturally, I must make sure that the
> > new
> > server is identical to the old one, i.e. having the same partitions,
> > files,
> > etc.
> >
> > What is the best practice when it comes to this scenario? How can I make
> > sure that the new server is identical? I'm hoping there is a solution in
> > which I can boot the new server with a rescue CD, restore (the whole
> > hard
> > drive including partitions) from the old server's backup, and that's it.
> > I'm
> > not sure if this is at all realistic, but would very much appreciate
> > alternative approaches if not.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Kenneth Holter
> >
> > To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
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> >
>
>
> --
>
> -- Yaron.
>

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