whats best way to save hard work?

[cubbyboy57]

I am new to Redhat / Linux, but wanted a good mail/web server so I bought a boxed rh9 pro.
I have spent 2 whole weeks trying (I have reloaded rh about 4 times because I 'broke' it) and finally have qmail, mysql, apache, and dns all working the way I want.

Now how can I backup the machine? I would like to be able wipe the drive and have it come back the way it is now. Would it be best to get a tape backup device and if so what works good and fairly easy to setup in rh9. Are any supported by the os?

Also would like to have a continous backup (like mirroring) of the mail, mysql and apache folders. I did not set that up to begin with - is too late now? I have a second drive I can add.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
james

[babbing]

I am new to Redhat / Linux, but wanted a good mail/web server so I bought a boxed rh9 pro.

Welcome to our little camp

I have spent 2 whole weeks trying (I have reloaded rh about 4 times because I 'broke' it) and finally have qmail, mysql, apache, and dns all working the way I want.

Great job, it takes most longer, congratulations! It takes a lot to learn a new OS.

Now how can I backup the machine? I would like to be able wipe the drive and have it come back the way it is now. Would it be best to get a tape backup device and if so what works good and fairly easy to setup in rh9. Are any supported by the os?

Also would like to have a continous backup (like mirroring) of the mail, mysql and apache folders. I did not set that up to begin with - is too late now? I have a second drive I can add.

The great thing about your situation is that you can go one of many ways here. You can:

A. Check sourceforge.net or freshmeat.net for backup utilities

B. Learn some scripting language

C. Other (I am leaving this open for others to comment on)

All the backup you want to do can be done all at once i would wager with one of the choices noted above.


Goodluck,

Babbing

[gaxprels]

if you want to back up specific files, you can use the tar command to backup to a tar file (no need for a tape drive here) then gzip or bzip2 them and upload them to your favorite server, or burn them to a cd, put them on zip disk, etc if you have one of those kind of drives laying around. if you want to truly do a full system backup (binary files as well as data files, mirror the whole drive) you will need some place with sufficient enough size to hold the image. it's generally recommended that you do regular backups of data files then do a monthly backup of binaries if you so desire... this keeps the size of the backups small and they time it takes to do the backups minimal.

i believe the flags you will want for tar are c for create, and f for the filename you want to create... example:
tar cvf somefile.tar somedirectory-to-archive
then do a bzip2 or gzip on it if you so desire.

man 1 tar

[friskydrifter]

Hey while we are on this is there anything like Nortons Ghost that can be used for Linux (free as in beer if possible)
i love how with ghost you can burn the HDD image to a bootable cd and ta..daaaaa! complete reinstall programs/settings an all in less than 20 min.