1. Backup and Restore Procedures

2. Introduction • Performing regular backups should be considered one of a responsible system administrator’s top priorities. • The safest method of doing backups is to record them on separate media, such as tape, writabel CD, DVD etc., and then store your backup sets in a separate location

3. Server Backup Procedures • Comand line tools (dd, dump, cpio, tar ...) • Text based utilities (Amanda, Taper ...) • GUI-based utilities (KDAT) • Comercial backup utilities (BRU, PerfectBackup+) • Choose considering the following factors: • Portability • Unatended or automated backups • User-friendliness • Remote Backups • Network Backups • Media Types

4. Backing up with “tar” • Take time to know the comand line options (“man tar”) • You need to know how to access the apropriate backup media • Example for full sistem backup onto the /archive/ filesystem with the exception of “/proc” , “/mnt” and “/archive” filesystems and without large cache files • #tar -zcvpf /archive/full-backup-`date ‘+%d-%B-%Y’`.tar.gz –directory / --exclude=mnt –exclude=proc –exclude=var/spool/squid • When writting directly to tape do not use compress (-z)

5. Working with your tape • Use “mt’ to rewind and eject: • mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind • mt -f /dev/nst0 offline

6. Backing up with KDat • If you are using KDE you can use Kdat • Kdat uses tar as engine (!) • User friendly and portable (read from comand line directly with tar) • Create backup profiles (at lest one for full backup and some other for selective/incremental backups) • Mount the tape and perform backups according to profile

7. Server Restore • Unarguably the one thing that is more important than performing regular backups is having them availamble when you need it • Restore method depends on your backup solution

8. Restore with “tar” • tar -zxvpf /archive/full-backup-09-Octomber-1999.tar.gz • If you don’t need to restore all files just specify the one(s) you need • Remember: tar strips leading / !!!

9. Restore with “KDat” • Using kdat just mount the tape and select apropriate options • Use “tar” to restore ...

10. Cisco router configuration Backups • Via tftp • Enable tftp service on a directly connected server • Remembre to set permisions to write and restrict afterwards • Just “write network” from the router prompt and respond with your tftp server details • To restore, you might need to access via console (if you cannot telnet into the router) and after seting up the link use “config network”