How To Perform a Bare-Metal Backup On Linux LVM

perlow writes "Using the free System Rescue CD you can perform bare-metal backups and restores of many types of computer systems. In this article, ZDNet columnist Jason Perlow explains the multi-step procedure in detail on an LVM-based system."

Comments

Another good disaster recovery solution

[lazy_nihilist]

http://www.mondorescue.org/

Re:Another good disaster recovery solution

[perlow]

Mondo is cool, but it is not platform independent and usable on a live CD. It requires installation and compilation on each box to build its own rescue environent.

The objective of my procedure was to come up with a method that could back up ANY Linux distribution at a low level in a very standardized and platform independent way, without sacrificing storage or performance OR TOUCHING THE OS ON THE BOX IN ANY WAY. This works with any Linux system you boot the System Rescue CD on, it requires no package or software installs or copied files onto the system you are backing up. None of the other methods that exist right now (System Imager, Mondo, even dd) will do -all- of the things I wanted it to do. My method is klunky as it is a manual process, but some enterprising programmer could probably script this in perl or python with a simple text menuing system pretty easily and have this built into the next System Rescue CD. That's what I was hoping for.

Hmm.

[gbjbaanb]

other features for bare-metal backup/restore involves:

Systemimager (dead good, and also good to restoring an image to other machines too). Restores from a cd (or PXE) boot and pulls the necessary data from the server with minimal intervention.

Any virtualisation technology - depends on your definition of 'bare metal', but if you think of it as an easy-to-restore server, then I guess it counts.

r1soft's (paid-for) continuous backup solution. Not tried this, but many webhost type companies have said its the dogs danglies.

Re:Sure - Don't.

[Chandon Seldon]

There are rarely free lunches when it comes to computer system configuration choices - and when there are free lunches, you can be sure that the hardware / software will be using that configuration by default.

The safest bet is this: If you aren't sure that you understand the trade-off you are making by using a tool like LVM, you should assume that it's going to come back and bite you in the ass. This isn't just true for software stuff either, hardware RAID 0 has basically the same reliability issues - but it's still sometimes the right engineering choice for someone who understands the trade-offs.

Re:Sure - Don't.

[petermgreen]

IMO the big thing that LVM offers is it makes reproportioning easier and safer.

With traditional partitioning you have to slide the data along the drive (which requires you to take the system offline, is time consuming and will probablly screw things up big time if power fails while doing it).

With LVM, I can add unallocated space to any volume I like quickly and easilly. If the filesystem supports online resizing I can even do it without unmounting it.

I agree though that while LVM does have JBOD and striping capabilities that are sometimes usefull the ramifications of using them should be carefully considered before going ahead.