On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 04:32:04PM -0400, Ronald Vincent Vazquez wrote: > > On Fri, July 21, 2006 3:57 pm, Jon LaBadie wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 02:44:30PM -0400, Ronald Vincent Vazquez wrote: > >> > >> Hello: > >> > >> Here is what we have done at our site. We re-mastered DSL (Damn Small > >> Linux) with all the tools we need (and some we won't ever need). The > >> bootable CD includes: ssh, netcat, etc., SCSI modules for our card, raid > >> stuff, and most important, Amanda client. > >> > >> As a test, we trashed the drives on the backup server rendering it > >> un-bootable and after the restoration a few minutes later the server was > >> running again. What I did was, boot from the CD, fdisk the drives, > >> create > >> the file systems, enable mirroring, mount the partitions, and restore > >> the > >> last level 0 to the drive. I didn't have to mess with any incrementals > >> because part of my test included a level 0 right before destroying the > >> server. The only other thing I did was to copy /dev from the CD to the > >> drive and mount /proc in order to install lilo on the hard drives. > >> > >> In short, if you could invest the time in creating a "Live CD" with > >> amanda > >> client now, it will pay good dividends later. You would need nothing > >> more > >> than the CD and a cup of coffee. > >> > > > > Great sounding system. Couple of questions if I might: > > > > 1. The resulting live CD, is it limited to the restoration of a single > > host, presumably the amanda server. And within that limit, if it > > exists, is the live CD in anyway tied to specific amanda configs? > > > > 2. Over the years/months, what sorts of things would necessitate a > > rebuild of the CD? Change of OS release? Update of any specific > > packages on the host? hardware changes? amanda config changes? > > amanda updates? > > > > 3. How scriptable might creating such a CD be? I'm thinking of two > > scenarios. An "automated" build would be useful if regular remakes > > of the CD were needed (question 2 above). And it would be a nice > > distributable script. Give instructions for how to get DSL and > > how to put together any of the extra pieces (netcat, etc.) into a > > form/location the script can use. Then setup a config file that > > says where the pieces are and anyother params needed. > > > > After they've done those steps, even neophytes of building a live CD, > > might be able to run the script and create a .iso to burn as their > > rescue/recovery disk. > > > > Thanks, > > jon > > -- > > Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > JG Computing > > 4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159 > > Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax) > > > Hello Jon: > > 1. Actually, the resulting CD is universal, we could restore any of our > x86 machines here. Our CD displays a prompt where you can choose form a > series of options: 1. Restore a cluster node, 2. Restore the backup server > itself (will drive the changer), 3. Restore any of our servers, 4. Obtain > a "bash" shell. All you do to restore any of the other servers is > configure your ethernet interface and ssh to the backup server or use > netcat. > > 2. The only reason I see which will force us to re-master the CD soon will > be to upgrade amanda itself from vers 2.4.X to 2.5.X. Other than that all > I can think is that you may want your "universal" CD to perform a new > task. In that case, another 20 cents and 5 minutes of your time... ;-) > > 3. The process of creating the disk can be turned into a script very > easily. For the software we add to the CD, we are compiling it on another > machine and then moving the binaries and libaries to the chrooted > environment manually. > > Let me see if I have enough time this weekend to "cook" a document in > order to share our efforts. > > That would be great.
I have a spare box totally unused with a small disk. I'll try to use it to trash and recreate from a live CD based on your docs. -- Jon H. LaBadie [EMAIL PROTECTED] JG Computing 4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159 Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)