Quick dumb question regarding backups

Keffin

I've just got everything working and would like to backup the system in case I go and break it. I've read about backing up to a bootable CD and it seems a little over-complicated. Since I also have a vector linux partition would I just be able to bzip up this partition from there and throw that file on a CD (or 2 CDs if I need to) then wipe the partition and unzip those files back to it from vector should the worst happen? Please tell me if my logic is flawed somehow.

Thanks.
_________________
Always cut the deck if it ups your odds.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 7:12 pm Post subject:

Keffin,

That should be OK. You spotted the worst gotcha - backing up a mounted filesystem. I assume that you have a single shared /boot ?
You should back that up in such a way the you can just resore the Gentoo bits.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Keffin · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 7:20 pm Post subject:

Thanks. I don't have a seperate partition for /boot, it just lies in my root partition. Now I shall be the "third type" of computer user

_________________
Always cut the deck if it ups your odds.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 7:56 pm Post subject:

Keffin,

You mean you have a root partition (including /boot) for gentoo and another one for vector ?

How does that work unless you fiddle with the bootable flag in the partition table all the time?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Keffin · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 8:35 pm Post subject:

Correct, I just have a /boot directory in each of my linux root partitions, and things just... work. I haven't fiddled with bootable flags (not to my knowledge at least :S).

With lilo (as comes with vector) it was a bit annoying to set it up since when you run lilo it thinks all the kernels are in /boot and it doesn't find the one for the other partition, this was overcome by just copying the kernel from the other partition to /boot before running lilo. Now I've installed gentoo and have grub I have no such problems, the relevent bits of my grub.conf are below if you're interested.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 8:50 pm Post subject:

Keffin,

So you only have one /boot/grub/grub.conf then?
and that is on the partition that the BIOS (and GRUB) expects to boot from.

Lilo will take full path names to kernels though it used to get nervous if you gave it a kernel over 508Mb away from the beginning of the drive.
Then you would have two /etc/lilo.conf files - nightmare.

It looks like you need a copy of both /boot(s) or you may be able to restore all of your Gentoo and find it won't start.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Keffin · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 9:21 pm Post subject:

I have only 1 grub.conf file, it is in gentoos /boot directory. I also have only 1 lilo.conf file, it is in vectors /boot directory. I don't use lilo now though, it was installed to the MBR then when I installed gentoo I installed grub to the MBR. I don't think I would need to back up vectors /boot, if anything goes wrong where vector's concerned it's a 10 minute reinstall, gentoo however takes just a little longer

.
_________________
Always cut the deck if it ups your odds.

Hauser · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 10:03 pm Post subject:

Keffin, I've got a similar situation; I've got a Knoppix partition where I installed grub (to manage all the OSes on my machine), if I were you I would do this:
Boot into vector,

Keffin · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 10:09 pm Post subject:

Thanks Hauser, but with grub being installed to the MBR surely I wouldn't have to reinstall it, unless the MBR died too :S.
_________________
Always cut the deck if it ups your odds.

Hauser · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject:

Yeah, you're right there. :oops:

der_maddin · Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 8:50 pm Post subject:

hmm, would it be necessary to boot from
another system first like described above ??

i ask because i only have gentoo running on my sys ...
( no need for other OS, though i have a
toshiba notebook running win2000 for work .. )
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neoCortex maddin # uname -a
Linux neoCortex 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 #2 SMP Fri Jan 13 04:40:02 CET 2006 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

Hauser · Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:20 pm Post subject:

You can boot with Knoppix or Gentoo LiveCD, then do the backup. Of course the shortcoming of this backup scheme is that you don't do it within a running system. Backing up the whole system within a running system is not trivial and there're specialized programs such as Mondorescue for such things, but you can search the forum for other alternatives. I'm not running a server or sth like that and I shutdown my system when I'm not using it, so this scheme suits me very well; I've tried it many times, it works perfectly!

der_maddin · Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:47 pm Post subject:

allright.

i also took a look at vortex, but as i
allways have gentoo-live-cd ready,

( on one of this cute little 80mm - cds,
pocketsize, so do allways have the
possibility to boot a gentoo base system
wherever i am )

so that will do the job for me ..

thanks for your support so far.
_________________
neoCortex maddin # uname -a
Linux neoCortex 2.6.14-gentoo-r5 #2 SMP Fri Jan 13 04:40:02 CET 2006 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux