Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Examples for whole-system backup

[Matt Taggart]

address@hidden writes:
> On Thursday, April 09, 2015 02:41:44 AM you wrote:
> > I'm sure that you could devise some scheme to do a full metal restore
> > with rdiff-backup, but in my opinion, it's not the tool for the job.

> Not the OP, but what do you recommend (in the LInux world, please, as that is
> what I use...)?

My knowledge is possibly old, but it's still working for me. Maybe others 
can point out if there are newer solutions to this problem.

A really long time ago there was a project that did this

http://systemimager.org/

It could boot via CD, USB, or network and then it could repartition the 
(possibly new) disks and copy the data over from a server. It was also 
smart about settings can you could create a master image and deploy it 
across a bunch of systems and it could automatically adjust hostname, 
network settings, etc. It was nice, but doing all that required distro 
specific code and it's no longer maintained. I would be interested to learn 
of anything modern and similar.

There are also ways of doing automated installs, in Debian based distros 
it's "debian-installer preseeding" and in Fedora based it's "kickstart". 
Those can automate the install process and give you a repeatable fresh 
install (which isn't the same as what you asked for). Then you could 
restore data to the system from backups or deploy it via a configuration 
management tools like puppet/chef/etc. That is still not what you are 
asking for as it wouldn't capture edits you had made to the system that 
weren't backed up or weren't in the config management tool. But sometimes 
that's a good thing, it allows you to leave cruft behind.

One way of getting what you are asking for is taking raw images of the 
partitions or whole disk. You can boot the system via CD/USB/Network (so 
that you aren't changing the drives you are trying to copy) and then use 
ddrescue to make an image of the drive and then copy it to another drive or 
over the network (with netcat or something). There might be automated tools 
for doing this. I know there are proprietary tools for doing it but I 
haven't used them.

-- 
Matt Taggart
address@hidden