UNIX system recovery (Ref: Solaris system recovery)

Dear Colleagues,

I am a bit confused about the ongoing (Solaris) system recovery
discussion.

We seem to be able to avoid most of (all of?) the mentioned problems
by proceeding for recovery of UNIX clients as follows (not tested very
thoroughly yet, but seems to work fine for SGI IRIX clients):

Partition new disk (using external documentation of partition layout)
  and/or make logical volumes (whatever is needed)
Boot miniroot (i.e. minimal root file system on swap partition)
Install minimal ADSM client software on miniroot (tar image)
mkfs  "true" root and  usr  partitions
mkdir /root, mount respective partitions over /root and /root/usr
Restore / to /root and /usr to /root/usr  using adsmc
mkdir other mount mpoints
cd /dev ; MAKEDEV   (create devices)
Recreate and restore whatever other filesystems were damaged in
  analogous manner.
Reboot

I think this method should be feasible for any UNIX system which
can boot a miniroot that supports elementary networking. Just be
sure to include "everything" (i.e. also the kernel etc.) into
the ADSM backup.

Advantages:
Only one backup method needed
"true image" restore of current system status (files deleted after
  initial root backup will not be "resurrected").
No open file conflicts because "true" root and /usr are quiescent
  during restore.

Caveats:
Files masked away by mounts over non-empty directories (present e.g.
  in standard IRIX systems) will not be restored (because they were
  never backed up).
You need to manually create the partitions, directories, and device
  files.
A certain amount of external documentation and preparation is needed
  (partition layout, ADSM password, owner and permissions of virtual
  mount points, IP address, netmask etc., tar image of minimal
  ADSM client)

An alternative (if miniroot functionality is insufficient) would be to
boot the system from a spare disk with a basic OS and ADSM client
installed.

I wonder why this procedure has not been recommended as the
standard recovery method. Dear Redbook-Desaster-people, are
you listening?   :-)    Any comments?

Sincerely,

   Dr. Michael Fink +-----------------------------+------------------------
        EDV-Zentrum | Universitaet Innsbruck      | Tel: +43(512)507-2311
 Computing Services | Technikerstrasse 13         | FAX: +43(512)507-2944
--------------------+ A - 6020 Innsbruck, Austria | Michael.Fink AT uibk.ac DOT 
at
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