I want to be able to quickly restore my system to a known working configuration from a burned CD or set of CDs. I currently backup my /home, /root, /etc, and MySQL dbs everynight to a tape drive. I also have a second HD that I perform a complete backup to everynight using rsync. What I want to be able to do is rebuild the system in a matter of minutes similar to the way a stage 3 install works. In case the box catches on fire or something equally unlikely, I want to be able to get my system back up and running quickly.
What I was thinking about doing was using the quickpkg utility to create binary packages of everything installed on my system. I would then burn all the binary packages to a CD. In order to restore, I would boot from a LiveCD, create my partitions, extract a stage 1 or 2 tarball (if even needed), and then use emerge to re-install all the binary packages from my CD. I would then restore my data and configs from the tape backup.
Would this work? Are there any major pitfalls anyone can see? Has anyone successfully done this kind of thing before?
emerge mondo-rescue
I've used this on some RedHat systems and it works flawlessly. It's a Disaster Recovery package that you can burn to CD, make an ISO file, or backup to Tape plus it's highly automated.
http://www.mondorescue.org/
Thanks, Kent
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