Backup and Restore Procedures

Introduction Performing regular backups should be considered one of a responsible system administrators top priorities. The safest method of doing backups is to record them on separate media, such as tape, writabel CD, DVD etc., and then store your backup sets in a separate location

Server Backup Procedures Comand line tools (dd, dump, cpio, tar...) Text based utilities (Amanda, Taper...) GUI-based utilities (KDAT) Comercial backup utilities (BRU, PerfectBackup+) Choose considering the following factors: –Portability –Unatended or automated backups –User-friendliness –Remote Backups –Network Backups –Media Types

Take time to know the comand line options (man tar) You need to know how to access the apropriate backup media Example for full sistem backup onto the /archive/ filesystem with the exception of /proc, /mnt and /archive filesystems and without large cache files #tar -zcvpf /archive/full-backup-`date +%d-%B-%Y`.tar.gz –directory / -- exclude=mnt –exclude=proc –exclude=var/spool/squid When writting directly to tape do not use compress (-z) Backing up with tar

Working with your tape Use mt to rewind and eject: –mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind –mt -f /dev/nst0 offline

Backing up with KDat If you are using KDE you can use Kdat Kdat uses tar as engine (!) User friendly and portable (read from comand line directly with tar) Create backup profiles (at lest one for full backup and some other for selective/incremental backups) Mount the tape and perform backups according to profile

Server Restore Unarguably the one thing that is more important than performing regular backups is having them availamble when you need it Restore method depends on your backup solution

Restore with tar tar -zxvpf /archive/full-backup-09-Octomber-1999.tar.gz If you dont need to restore all files just specify the one(s) you need Remember: tar strips leading / !!!

Restore with KDat Using kdat just mount the tape and select apropriate options Use tar to restore...

Cisco router configuration Backups Via tftp Enable tftp service on a directly connected server Remembre to set permisions to write and restrict afterwards Just write network from the router prompt and respond with your tftp server details To restore, you might need to access via console (if you cannot telnet into the router) and after seting up the link use config network