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whole-disk-backups

Posted May 6th, 2008 by jahyde

Mondoarchive is a whole disk backup solution that builds cd or dvd sized iso files. if your drive ever crashes simply burn and boot, instant restore.

temporary update: Currently does NOT work on 2.2x

A cron script will be created that allows you to send the isos to a windows share, usb drive, or ftp site on a weekly basis.

Modification: if anyone desires to code up a management gui for this, that would be nice, i am open to any contributions/modifications to the script, and will be keeping to the original GNU General Public License.

Support: NO support is provided for this what-so-ever, support is fully the responsibility of the community, please refer to this post for support and also refer to the docs online www.mondorescue.org

Lastly this is USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, and is currently considered beta.

This has been tested on lab boxes: trixbox 2.4 and 2.6. Currently does NOT work on 2.2x

Run the following commands as root:
cd ~
wget http://www.astusers.org/install-mondo.tgz
tar -xzvf install-mondo.tgz
chmod +x install-mondo.sh
./install-mondo.sh

Reboot once the install completes, then you will need to edit /etc/cron.weekly/mondobackup.cron and turn on one of the various backup methods, instructions are in the cron script itself:
nano -w /etc/cron.weekly/mondobackup.cron
or use winscp from windows.

To test, run /etc/cron.weekly/./mondobackup.cron
You should see some iso files under /backup, and the boot iso under /var/cache/mindi and anywhere else you configured the script to send them.

USB drive usage

Finding the USB drive------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before proceding, note that ***all data will be ERASED*** from your USB drive.
Plug in your USB drive and wait a minute or two, then at the command line (Linux CLI) type:
dmesg
Your USB device will be recognized as a SCSI device (just like SATA drives).
You should see something like:
USB Mass Storage Device Found...
follow several lines below that to find the name assigned to the drive, if you already have a SATA or SCSI drive in the system your USB will most likely be:
/dev/sdb1
(the one means first partition on the device called "sdb")
If you have 2 SATA/SCSI devices in your server, the USB device should be "sdc".
Just verifiy that the size shown in dmesg is close to what you plugged in, otherwise this could be the wrong drive.

Formatting the USB drive---------------------------------------------------------------------
at the Linux CLI type:
fdisk /dev/sda
press the m key to see a list of commands.
then press d to delete any existing partitions on the USB drive.
Next press n to create a new partition
Select p for primary partition
Then 1 for the default size.
Next press t to change the type,
and c to select FAT32
Finally save the changes to the disk by typing w
Using the USB drive in your cron script-----------------------------------------------------
The device specified by dmesg (ie /dev/sdb1) will need to be input in the cron file under
USBDEVICENAME=

Restore

See this doc:
http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/mondorescue-howto.pdf

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