Hi,
>> if i would want to restore the /-partition which i recorded with
>> star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=0 -C / .
>> and if i had a completely naked disk, where would i look for
>> instructions ?
> Just follow the instructions in the man page
> at the section "INCREMENTAL RESTORES"
I am truely willing to do so.
I already did in small scale with loopback filesystems.
Those instructions are among the best parts of your
documentation, i must say.
>> I would have at least the following questions :
>> how to get running a installer system including star,
>> how to partition the new disk (i.e. what info to record at backup time)
>> how to create the desired filesystem type (if the installer system is
>> not the same operating system as on the backuped partition)
>> what to check after successful restore (any pitfalls like outdated disk
>> info ?), before and after the first boot of the restored system
>
> These question are OS dependent and thus cannot be handled in the
> the star man page.
Not in the man page, of course.
But it is a practical problem which arises if i want
to use star archives as base for disaster recovery.
This problem did not arise to me before i began to use
star because my current approach would be to install
the vanilla SuSE 9.0 (or whatever was the base) plus afio,
to enter single user mode, and to unpack the afio archive(s)
over the vanilla system.
This worked with SuSE 7.2 in two consecutive tests but i am not
sure wether the systems would have been stable in real production
mode afterwards. Personally i would rather install a modern
Linux, configure it near to my needs and only use the system
backup as a reference for fine tuning. (My user data backups
are separate from the system tree backup, mostly ISO-9660 format.)
This approach is possible with star, too.
But star offers more. It promises to record and restore a
whole partition (filesystem) in an exact but portable way.
What i would need for restoring a system partition is an
empty filesystem on the desired disk partition and an
operating system which does not rely on that partition.
That OS has to be able to handle the desired filesystem type
and it has to provide star to unpack the archive.
No special configuration expertise should be necessary for
running that installer system.
It would be nice if it would not occupy a CD/DVD drive but
that's not an absolute necessity since a second drive should
not be to hard to install. (We already replaced the disk)
After some time of frustrating search, i possibly found exactly
what is needed for the Intel/AMD Linux user :
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/RIP-14.2.readme
It contains among many other tools star and afio.
The star version seems to be quite recent :
strings bin/star | fgrep '1.5'
reveils
1.5a64
@(#)xheader.c 1.56 05/07/30 Copyright 2001-2005 J. Schilling
It will last a few hours until i get my hands on an old
box where i could try to boot the CD and to read the
three CDs with the chopped archive. A fire drill. Interesting.
Does anybody here have experiences with RIP ?
> People who administer the OS and the backup should know how
> reinstall the OS.
My backup concept is more end user oriented.
Most tears are produced when user generated data are lost.
System data usually cost their price in sweat drops.
I confess to have neglected the system backup topic in the past.
star gave me a heads-up.
>> Joerg, how about SchilliX ? Would it be able to partiton
>> a disk, to format an ext2 filestem and to restore a SuSE Linux
>> from a star archive on DVD ?
>
> SchilliX is fully funtional for restores without the CD.
> You either boot from USB memory stick or from CD and then
> remove the CD.
That would match my needs.
> There are plans to port ext2/3 to Solaris, but the priority is
> not very high as Solaris has a fast and stable FS (ufs).
My usage scenario would provide a reason to support even
mediocre filesystem types. As long as they are popular.
From the view of promoting free Solaris it would be an
interesting application for a live-CD to save us Linux
users in case of emergency. Imagine the gain of reputation
with each admin who sucessfully used it.
(The Solaris oyster attitude was the reason why me and my
employer did not make the migration from SunOS to Solaris but
to Linux and IRIX. Its promoters should invest some effort in
easing that old proprietary reputation.)
>> Would that need a second CD/DVD drive ? What about ReiserFS, XFS, ... ?
>
> Star is FS independent....
... and for that it is praiseworthy.
The question was rather directed towards Solaris.
> BTW: With cdrtools, they did not update anything during the
> last 12 months.
>
> However, if you create your own Knoppix with a recent star,
> this should work.
I'll follow the RIP path first.
A maintained ready-to-use distribution which can be obtained
after the disaster. This has its clear advantages.
Do other users (especially of non-x86 systems) know similar
rescue systems with a full equipment of archiver programs ?
Have a nice day :)
Thomas
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