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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] Back-up strategy for home linux systems

On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 19:51 -0500, Michael Walma wrote:
> 
> You might want to look into the 'dump/restore' combination.  Dump will 
> create a dump 'image' of an entire ext2/3 filesystem at the inode level, 
> full or incremental, and restore, well, restores a filesystem.  'man 
> dump' will give you some good ideas on how to set up a cron job.  Put 
> the dumps on to another disk, and you'd be in good shape.
> 
> This howto 
> (http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/March2005/article370.shtml) shows you 
> how to use dump/restore with netcat (or ssh for the more security 
> minded) to clone computers over a network.  It worked like a charm for 
> me, used in combination with a LiveCD.  Boot the target with the LiveCD, 
> partition the drives, format the partitions, dump/netcat/restore the 
> filesystems over, chroot into the newly minted filesystem, run 
> grub-install and bingo, an exact copy, down to the inodes.  It handles 
> different disk geometries and sizes fine, so long as you use matching 
> filesystem types on both sides.

Thanks. Looked at man dump and feel like a kid with a new toy.

-m