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how to do backups with Mondo Rescue
There are two things that I'm doing with backups:
# I'm archiving an old machine before I wipe it completely to turn it into a Media Center PC (Using Mythbuntu or LinuxMCE)
# I'm making a full system backup of my notebook before I do a distribution upgrade from Kubuntu 8.4 to Kubuntu 8.10
== Backup Software ==
For my purposes, I chose [http://www.mondorescue.org/index.html Mondo Rescue] as my tool of choice because it is a very versatile package for complete disaster recovery as well as flexible in the ability to use online storage (e.g. external USB drive).
== Archive the old workstation ==
These are the disks that I have to preserve by copying the good, throwing away the bad.
<pre>
greg@liberty:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40000020480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2551 2633 666697+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 2634 2646 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2647 4863 17808052+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2647 4668 16241683+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 4669 4863 1566306 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/hdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 158816 80043232+ 83 Linux
</pre>
One of the first tasks at hand was to mount my old Windows drive in a way that made it accessible to me (as opposed to read-only to root) Learn more about this at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticallyMountPartitions
{{ambox
|text = the file <code>/etc/fstab</code> sets up your file system devices and has started using universally unique identifiers to avoid problems with pluggable external disks.}}
You can learn the identifier with the command: <source lang="bash">sudo vol_id -u /dev/sda1</source>
But it turns out there is a simpler way of finding out what the volume id is for a disk drive:
<source lang="bash">
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 05226929-bdde-4a46-af85-01b40827a1f4 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 8e46d1ff-5f34-46b1-a51a-0dac169123b7 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 c82c1eb4-439c-4982-8764-ac207d4f9622 -> ../../sda1
</source
<source lang="bash">
cat /proc/filesystems
</source>
shows you what file system types are supported under your currently running kernel
== Backups for Disaster Recover ==
So, when it came to using a backup program, I chose Mondo Rescue because it can backup to CD, DVD, disk or other mediums. Plus, it can create a restore
disk for you which is what I want... in the case of catastrophic system failure, I want to be able to recreate my computer on new hardware.
I have an external USB hard drive with a terabyte of storage that I have mounted at /media/disk
This is the command that I used to create a full system backup of my laptop hard drive to my external USB drive:
<source lang="bash">
mondoarchive \
-OV # do a backup, and verify \
-p greg-laptop # prefix backup files with this \
-i # Use ISO files (CD images) as backup media \
-I / # include from root (default) \
-N # exclude all mounted network filesystems \
-d /media/disk/backups # write ISOs to this directory \
-s 4420m # make the ISOs 4,420 MB is size (smaller than a DVD) \
-S /media/disk/tmp # write scratch files to this directory
-T /media/disk/tmp # write temporary files to this directory
</source>
At first, the backup failed with a message that it thought my drive was full. But in reality, it was a problem with the tmp partition being too small so then I added the -S and -T options and it worked fine.
This is what mondoarchive said after I used the -T and -S options to do the run
<pre>
Call to mkisofs to make ISO (ISO #18) ...OK
Please reboot from the 1st ISO in Compare Mode, as a precaution.
Done.
Done.
Writing boot+data floppy images to disk
No Imgs
---promptpopup---1--- No regular Boot+data floppies were created due of space constraints. However, you can burn /var/cache/mindi/mondorescue.iso to a CD and boot from that.
---promptpopup---Q--- [OK] ---
-->
Backup and/or verify ran to completion. However, errors did occur.
/var/cache/mindi/mondorescue.iso, a boot/utility CD, is available if you want it
Data archived OK.
Errors occurred during backup. Please check logfile.
See /var/log/mondoarchive.log for details of backup run.
</pre>
Basically, I have to
"reduce your kernel's size"
if I want to create a boot floppy, but it doesn't matter if I want to use a boot ISO instead.
[[Category:Howto]]
[[Category:Help]]
[[Category:Applications]]
[[Category:System Administration]]
# I'm archiving an old machine before I wipe it completely to turn it into a Media Center PC (Using Mythbuntu or LinuxMCE)
# I'm making a full system backup of my notebook before I do a distribution upgrade from Kubuntu 8.4 to Kubuntu 8.10
== Backup Software ==
For my purposes, I chose [http://www.mondorescue.org/index.html Mondo Rescue] as my tool of choice because it is a very versatile package for complete disaster recovery as well as flexible in the ability to use online storage (e.g. external USB drive).
== Archive the old workstation ==
These are the disks that I have to preserve by copying the good, throwing away the bad.
<pre>
greg@liberty:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40000020480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2551 2633 666697+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 2634 2646 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2647 4863 17808052+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2647 4668 16241683+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 4669 4863 1566306 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/hdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 158816 80043232+ 83 Linux
</pre>
One of the first tasks at hand was to mount my old Windows drive in a way that made it accessible to me (as opposed to read-only to root) Learn more about this at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticallyMountPartitions
{{ambox
|text = the file <code>/etc/fstab</code> sets up your file system devices and has started using universally unique identifiers to avoid problems with pluggable external disks.}}
You can learn the identifier with the command: <source lang="bash">sudo vol_id -u /dev/sda1</source>
But it turns out there is a simpler way of finding out what the volume id is for a disk drive:
<source lang="bash">
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 05226929-bdde-4a46-af85-01b40827a1f4 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 8e46d1ff-5f34-46b1-a51a-0dac169123b7 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2008-10-21 09:32 c82c1eb4-439c-4982-8764-ac207d4f9622 -> ../../sda1
</source
<source lang="bash">
cat /proc/filesystems
</source>
shows you what file system types are supported under your currently running kernel
== Backups for Disaster Recover ==
So, when it came to using a backup program, I chose Mondo Rescue because it can backup to CD, DVD, disk or other mediums. Plus, it can create a restore
disk for you which is what I want... in the case of catastrophic system failure, I want to be able to recreate my computer on new hardware.
I have an external USB hard drive with a terabyte of storage that I have mounted at /media/disk
This is the command that I used to create a full system backup of my laptop hard drive to my external USB drive:
<source lang="bash">
mondoarchive \
-OV # do a backup, and verify \
-p greg-laptop # prefix backup files with this \
-i # Use ISO files (CD images) as backup media \
-I / # include from root (default) \
-N # exclude all mounted network filesystems \
-d /media/disk/backups # write ISOs to this directory \
-s 4420m # make the ISOs 4,420 MB is size (smaller than a DVD) \
-S /media/disk/tmp # write scratch files to this directory
-T /media/disk/tmp # write temporary files to this directory
</source>
At first, the backup failed with a message that it thought my drive was full. But in reality, it was a problem with the tmp partition being too small so then I added the -S and -T options and it worked fine.
This is what mondoarchive said after I used the -T and -S options to do the run
<pre>
Call to mkisofs to make ISO (ISO #18) ...OK
Please reboot from the 1st ISO in Compare Mode, as a precaution.
Done.
Done.
Writing boot+data floppy images to disk
No Imgs
---promptpopup---1--- No regular Boot+data floppies were created due of space constraints. However, you can burn /var/cache/mindi/mondorescue.iso to a CD and boot from that.
---promptpopup---Q--- [OK] ---
-->
Backup and/or verify ran to completion. However, errors did occur.
/var/cache/mindi/mondorescue.iso, a boot/utility CD, is available if you want it
Data archived OK.
Errors occurred during backup. Please check logfile.
See /var/log/mondoarchive.log for details of backup run.
</pre>
Basically, I have to
"reduce your kernel's size"
if I want to create a boot floppy, but it doesn't matter if I want to use a boot ISO instead.
[[Category:Howto]]
[[Category:Help]]
[[Category:Applications]]
[[Category:System Administration]]