NetBSD - Live Network Backup

dvl writes "It is possible but inconvenient to manually clone a hard disk drive remotely, using dd and netcat. der Mouse, a Montreal-based NetBSD developer, has developed tools that allow for automated, remote partition-level cloning to occur automatically on an opportunistic basis. A high-level description of the system has been posted at KernelTrap. This facility can be used to maintain complete duplicates of remote client laptop drives to a server system. This network mirroring facility will be presented at BSDCAN 2005 in Ottawa, ON on May 13-15."

Comments

Pros and Cons

[teiresias]

This would be an extremely sensitive server system. With everyones harddrive image just waiting to be blasted to a blank harddrive, the potential for misdeeds is staggering. Even in an offical capacity, I really feel uneasy if my boss was able to take a copy of my harddrive image and see what I've been working on. Admittely, yes it should all be work but here we are allowed a certain amount of freedom with our laptops and I wouldn't want to have that data at my bosses fingertips.

On the flipside, this would be a boon to company network admins especially with employees at remote sites who have a hard crash.

Another reason to build a high speed backbone. Getting my 80GB harddrive image from Seattle, while I'm in Norfolk would be a lot of downtime.

How long before this becomes a hack?

[Bret Tobey]

Assuming you can get around bandwidth monitoring, how long before this becomes incorporated into hacking tools. Add this to a little spyware and a zombie network and things get very interesting for poorly secured networks & computers.