Linux Recovery Question

[cheffern]

Hi friends -



I need some knowledge/advice from you on what to exclude from the TSM restore in this scenario:



Say we have a Linux node - RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 ES - no databases - just the normal linux junk - it dies.

We have to rebuild the OS on another machine (same setup as before) and restore from the last backup.

Right now the exclusions for the backups look like this:



exclude /.../core

exclude /var/tmp/.../*

exclude /var/cache

exclude /unix

exclude /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/log/.../*

exclude /cdrom/.../*

exclude.dir /tmp

exclude.dir /scratch

exclude.dir /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin

exclude.dir /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/api/bin

exclude.dir /mnt



I am fine with the exclusions, in case any 'normal' file needs to be restored...but let me know what you think I am missing.

Above it will not overwrite the TSM stuff which I am using to do the restore...



But I am just looking for what should NOT be overwritten if I have to restore the whole thing back onto a clean, filesystem ready 'pre-prepped' box.

Like which libraries (specifically if anyone knows...), kernel things like /usr/src ?, /var/run, /dev ...etc...



I am not a Linux person at this point in time - so any thoughts here are appreciated.

TIA!!!!

 

[moon-buddy]

Some things to take note.



If a Linux box dies, are you replacing it with the same server: identical parts, processor speed, etc.?



If the answer is NO, then all you have to do is restore data files and no system files. Data files in this case would include any file that is in /home. User profiles has to be recreated, or you can try restoring files (found in /etc) that are related to user profiles (I have not been successful doing this route).



If the hardware is completely identical, you may have some luck restoring even system files on top of a minimum Linux install. Avoid restoring on top of the core and /boot files unless you are sure that everything is identical.



I hope this helps.