[ale] Bootable backup

[Chris Fowler]

Here is a topic that is somewhat OF related.

When I was doing AIX/SCO exclusively with a mix of Linux there were many
features on AIX that I enjoyed and wanted on Linux.  I can't think of
many on SCO I liked :)

I have this perl program I wrote a few years back for our servers called
mksysb.  Make System Bootable Backup.  It works for my intentions but is
not ideal like AIX's version.  My version is specific to my hardware.
That is fine since most of my servers are the same.  When we get a new
set of hardware I have to modify the script.

How does it work?

It is written in perl and in the __DATA__ section is a tarball of the
root of the ISO disk.  This includes a kernel, loading software, etc.  I
built all that mess on another computer as my own mini bootable Linux
system to support the hardware.  If you burn a DVD using this program
and boot it you would consider it a rescue DVD with a backup of the
server.  There is a Perl program that will partition drivers, mke3fs,
mkswap, make raid, restore tarball, install grub, and reboot.  

To create this backup you just but a blank DVD in the drive, login as
root, and type mksysb.  

This works great but has some problems obviously.  For my purposes it
works.  

Is there anything OSS out there that can create a bootable backup (DVD)
off the server.  My servers have 250GB drivers but rarely does the data
on each surpass 10G.  10G is easily tarred and compressed to fit on one
DVD.

The AIX version of the program made a bootable tape off the current
running kernel, drivers, OS, etc.  It did not have a special load like
mine does.

I've been in situations on AIX where I've used my mksysb backups. I know
the value.

Chris