Best practise backing up a server?

[m_gustafsson]

I have a server which I am becoming more an more dependant on, and I just don't like to think of the amount of time I would have to spend getting a new server up an running in case the one I have today breaks in some way
As it is now I backup all important data that I have put on the server on external disks, so that should be ok I hope. Is there anyway to also backup the system as such, so that it becomes pretty easy to install the same system with the same applications and settings on a new machine?

Many thanks for any ideas.

/Mats

[judepereira]

Yes, you can backup the following files/folders on the server so all configs, etc are saved. This includes the apps installed too...

[Letharion]

Sounds like a good recommendation, directories might ofc need adjustment from server to server.
First, I wanted to say, "You can probably write a bash-script for that"
Then, I figured, "Some has already done that." and was gonna tell you too google.

Then I got curious, and googled.
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=401456

Good luck. Please report back, time permitting

[judepereira]

OK, first of all, I don't run any server. But yes, I still take backups as I have configured my Gentoo so well to do it all over again from scratch. For just a user machine(not a server one), you can use app-backup/simplebackup. But then, as you run servers, you will find that Bacula is probably the best solution. It has lots of configurations, etc. app-backup/simplebackup is basically just a perl file put in /usr/bin; it supports full/incremental/differential backups. It can also send mails too using perl modules. I would recommend Bacula as it is a high-grade, enterprise backup solution. I know a person who runs Bacula for about ten clients, and he states that "Bacula is the best thing that ever happened to me!"
_________________
Jude Pereira
(http://judepereira.com)

[m_gustafsson]

Many thanks for your advices
I will take a close look at them and report back.

[pdr]

I use rsnapshot to backup my home server to an external hard drive (and my workstation and firewall for that matter). Have already tested that after copying the files back to a new disk (have to partition it manually) all I have to do is fire up a live cd, chroot, do grub-install, reboot and it is good to go. I had to tweak the rsnapshot.conf file a little for a complete backup, and had to write a pre-backup bash script that would mount /boot if it was not already mounted, and a post-backup bash script to umount anything the pre-backup script mounted.

[m_gustafsson]

Do you see any drawback with just using rsync?

[m_gustafsson]

rsnapshot seems to give the functionality I need in an easy way, so I will try to use it for backing up the files proposed by judepereira.

[Tin]

[pdr]

rsnapshot is cool for that. It uses rsync, but keeps multiple snapshots and hard-links between them for unchanged files, which means there is only one physical copy of the file contents but (unlike sym(bolic) link) you can delete any one of the snapshots and the others hard-linked are still fine. Using rsync it doesn't compress, but you also get easy access to the backup contents.

To restore I just fire up a live cd, partition the drive and mount to (eg) /mnt/gentoo, cp everything from the last snapshot, chroot into it and run grub-install (copying mtab etc - just like the chroot part of the install docs).

[judepereira]

I think you'll find simplebackup a combination of both rsync and rsnapshot. It even compresses my full 1GB backup to like 400MB. It's also has the features of full, differential and incremental backups... It has support for even not taking any specific file types for a backup. I find this an easier tool because its a one-time config and then it works like you've never imagined. Oh, and it supports various types of compression too!
_________________
Jude Pereira
(http://judepereira.com)