>
> I'm new to bacula and am considering it for a back up solution for a
small
> business.
>
> I've gotten the impression from reading the docs and wiki that it is
difficult
> to restore a windows system (like windows server 2003 for instance)
after a
> wipe.
>
> Couldn't I just reinstall the OS, the registry backup, and the windows
bacula
> client, reconfigure it and do a restore? I really only want some sql
(ms sql,
> mysql) databases, and a directory full of pdfs backed up nightly in
case of a
> failure or some kind of over write problem. What problems might I come
across
> trying this method? Thanks for any comments in advance.
>
> I just set up bacula on ubuntu 8.04 server, and have a couple win 2003
> servers.
Try it and see :)
If the Windows 2003 machine(s) use normal SATA disks then buy some new
ones, pick a good time for scheduled maintenance, take the original
disks out, put the new blank ones in and enact your disaster recovery
plan. Once you are done, put the original disks back. If your server has
heaps of disks in it and you can't justify buying a complete new set to
test your backups then just buy one and do a proof-of-concept partial
restore. If you have a RAID controller make sure that it will be happy
with you swapping disks around like that though...
It's a bit more (a lot more probably) expensive if your server uses
hotswap SAS disks or something, and if you are restoring the registry
then restoring to a different (eg cheaper) test platform becomes a bit
harder but not impossible.
If you are doing incremental backups, be aware that the last-modified
date on the sql databases doesn't get updated like you'd expect (ask me
how I found that out :). If you are doing full backups then VSS takes
care of everything for you.
A few years ago I restored an XP machine using bacula on a BartPE boot
cd. The director and catalog was on another machine which made that side
of it easier (no need to restore catalog's etc). The restore process was
basically just:
. Build the BartPE CD and put bacula-fd and associated stuff on it
. Boot of the BartPE CD (this was actually a lot trickier than
anticipated - the CDROM driver turned out to be mostly stuffed)
. Set up networking
. Format and partition the disk and make it bootable
. Restore all the data
I'm not sure how you'll go restoring the registry 'live' - you may need
to restore it to another folder and then boot a recovery cd and copy it
from there or something. I've never done it that way.
Have a read of the ASR restore methodology on Microsoft's various web
sites to give you a basic understanding of the backup and restore
process on Windows and what restoring the registry entails.
James
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