Re: Debian OS Backup

Jacob Ramirez wrote:
We are running linux with Debian OS. I am new to using linux and
debian. Can I use an external hard drive to backup the operating system
and files on our linux servers? If so, how do I create a full backup of
the system for disaster recovery? Is it easy to restore if there is a
need?
Is there documentation somewhere that I can read that explains how to do
this? Thanks for your help in advance.

I like rdiff-backup[1]. From the man page:

rdiff-backup is a script, written in python(1) that backs up one direc‐
tory to another. The target directory ends up a copy (mirror) of the
source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special sub‐
directory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost
some time ago. The idea is to combine the best features of a mirror
and an incremental backup. rdiff-backup also preserves symlinks, spe‐
cial files, hardlinks, permissions, uid/gid ownership, and modification
times.

If you want an image of a complete partition, try partimage[2].

Disaster restore using a live CD to run rdiff-backup, partimage, etc. There are
many around (eg Knoppix), or make your own using Debian Live[3]. Alternatively,
keep a second, small bootable system on your HDD.

[1] http://rdiff-backup.nongnu.org/
[2] http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page
[3] http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive/


--
Chris.


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