Backing up a server
March 30, 2010 - 23:09 — robertsr@uoguelph.ca
Just curious what the easiest way you all know of is to "ghost" a server. I have all my files, etc backed up, but I was hoping I could create a one shot image of the installation, for worst case scenario moments. (Ubuntu running LAMP, not that it should matter terribly)
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For an unmounted disk? dd is
For an unmounted disk? dd is reliable but very slow. Check out http://clonezilla.org/, it's quite fast and is very simple to use.
I personally use rsync for my own servers. This way I get a daily backup without having to have an unmounted volume. If I have to reinstall, I can just install a base OS then rsync everything back.
I have the following in /etc/cron.daily on the destination:
#!/bin/bashTODAY=`date +"%Y%m%d"`
YESTERDAY=`date -d "1 day ago" +"%Y%m%d"`
RSYNC="/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/rsync"
EXCLUDES="/etc/furball.excludes"
DESTINATION="/media/media/furball/$TODAY/"
rsync -z -e "ssh" \
--rsync-path="$RSYNC" \
--archive \
--exclude-from=$EXCLUDES \
--numeric-ids \
--link-dest=../$YESTERDAY rsync@chewtoy.furrypaws.ca:/ $DESTINATION
Where the rsync user on the server has sudo permissions to run rsync so it can read everything. I got the command line by running it with full sudo permissions, then copying the command it ran so it could only do that (and not say, rm -rf /).
rsync ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/rsync --server --sender -logDtprze.iLs --numeric-ids . //etc/furball.excludes contains:
/dev/proc
/sys
/media
/mnt
/swapfile
/tmp
/var/tmp
/var/lib/mysql/
MySQL is backed up in a separate mysqldump script.
This has worked wonderfully in the years I've used it.
--
Andrew
Ol Reliable
As always, Drew, you're awesome.