Wei, Xiaohai wrote:
I want to backup a whole linux system to windows for restoring the
system from windows to linux later.
I successfully installed native rdiff-backup on windows xp and it can
backup linux data to windows folder.
But it seems failed if there is symlink in the linux system. Error
information attached at the end.
I want to know:
1. I want to backup all the information of the linux system to windows
and so i can restore the OS(not only data) to linux later. I think the
information includes user/group/permission etc. At first i want to use
rsync to do so but found rsync can not do it. and I found that
rdiff-backup will use meta-data to keep such information, so I assume
it can do so. correct me if I am wrong.
2. If i can get what I need with rdiff-backup, what should I do?
Thanks, James
I don't believe rdiff-backup is able to do this on its own; rdiff-backup
suits a situation in which you want to backup data (not whole system)
and to do so repeatedly (e.g. day after day), and be able to recover
data from earlier backups as well as from the latest one. Even if
rdiff-backup can backup your whole system it cannot easily restore it.
To restore a system you need to be able to boot up in a temporary OS, do
the partitioning and formatting of the (new) system disk etc etc (and
then copy all the system files and data), rdiff-backup is not designed
to do this.
If you want to backup a whole linux system for easy restoring, then I
suggest you look at a package designed for this purpose. I use mondo
http://www.mondorescue.org - and it doesn't need Windows. You can create
a backup on a flash drive, take this to a different machine, boot it and
restore your old system to the new hardware. It offers differential
backups, but not the 'history' magic that is rdiff-backup's special trick.
I suggest you use both: mondo to backup your system (excluding your own
data files, because these may be too big for a flash disk), and then
rdiff-backup [over a network to another machine] for your data files.
mondo only needs to be run occasionally, rdiff-backup you should run
frequently (e.g. as daily cron job). When disaster strikes, use mondo to
recover your system and then rdiff-backup to recover your data. And of
course if you need the data from one week or one month or even one year
ago, rdiff-backup will oblige.
HTH
Dominic
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