backup entire system

[Stephen]

In an effort to simplify, Cloning your drive is not a bad thing to do.
however for regular backups i will stress that you want rsync handy.

Me personally i would clone the drive, probably via clonezilla via ftp
or smb to one of your other machines. once done get the gparted
livecd, boot that and then make the needed changes to your disk
structure.

then i would see about creating a sort of mesh of your home directory
between the machines you use for files via rsync so all your machines
would have the same files between them and you would have a guaranteed
redundancy (barring total obliteration of your residence, but then you
can work on offsite storage from there)

That initial disk image will allow you a very quick restore then you
can rsync the delta from that initial image to your current running
state.

On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 5:34 AM, kitepilot at kitepilot.com
<kitepilot at kitepilot.com> wrote:
> Save the current checksum value of your files:
> # >/tmp/files.md5
> # find / -xdev \( -path /tmp -o -path /var/tmp \) -prune -o -type f \
> #     -exec md5sum "{}" \; >>/tmp/files.md5
>
> Validate that they haven't changed:
> # cd /
> # md5sum -c /tmp/files.md5
> (This is what the  --checksum option of rsync does)
> SAVE /tmp/files.md5 SOMEWHERE ELSE, most systems will cleanup /tmp on every
> boot.
>
> To "replicate your system":
> Boot the boxes with a CD (Debian live works good and is lite, no "X"):
> # sudo -i
> # apt-get install ssh
> # mount -text4 /dev/sda1 /mnt
> (You'll need to create partitions and filesystems on the "other" box)
> And from your box:
> # rsync -vaxHXY --checksum --super / root at otherbox:/mnt
> On the other box:
> You'll most likely need to adjust the /etc/fstab file because most distros
> use UUID and they will not match, although that's an entirely different
> subject altogether.
> Quick and dirty options are:
> .- Build the new filesystems with the same UUID(s),
> .- Change the /etc/fstab to match the new UUID(s) or,
> .- use absolute devices (/dev/sda1) to mount the drives.
> I think that RedHat still uses labels, which renders the same solution after
> you replace "UUID" with "label".
> Finally on your "other" box
> (DO NOT DO THIS ON "your" BOX UNLES YOU *KNOW* what you are doing)
> # grub-install /dev/sda
> And now you should be able to boot your other box like your own.
>
> Of course there are only 731598564385+1 variations and applications of the
> recipe above.  You have there all the information you need to "solve the
> problem", now you need to "define the problem" an reshuffle the instructions
> above to fit the shoe.
> For more info (on EVERYTHING) go read:
> http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
> Enjoy...
> ET
>
>
>
> Michael Havens writes:
>>
>> I was wondering... I wanted to clone my hard drive because I need to
>> repartiton it to make it smaller. Do I really need to worry about the data
>> getting corrupted? If I do need to worry about it is the data recoverable
>> if something happens to it?
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Michael Havens <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> you know.... I want to clone my drive because I thought you really
>>> Dec 29, 2011 at 3:55 AM, kitepilot at kitepilot.com
>>> <kitepilot at kitepilot.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have cloned and restored 2464720174+1 systems with:
>>>> rsync - need to vaxHXY --checksum /path1 /path2 /path3
>>>> someone at remotebox:/mybackup
>>>> The 'x' constrain the sweep to a partition to avoid memory directories
>>>> (/proc, /dev, /sys) which forces to explicitly name every mounted
>>>> directory
>>>> to copy.
>>>> Then you can 'restore' with:
>>>> rsync -vaxHXY --checksum someone at remotebox:/mybackup /
>>>> All the options are important (except '-v'), but specially '-H' *HAS* to
>>>> be there if you are cloning directories with kernel files or the
>>>> resulting
>>>> system will eventually become unstable.
>>>> Free advise, can't sue me...   :)
>>>> YMMV
>>>> ET
>>>> PS: If you have any question,
>>>> you will get any answer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Michael Havens writes:
>>>>>
>>>>> I got things just the way I want them. How do I make a miiror image of
>>>>> my
>>>>> hard drive? dd? Or is there a more user friendly way? I kinda want to
>>>>> do
>>>>> it
>>>>> like a raid  would do it. You know.... where I would just recopy the
>>>>> image
>>>>> if my computer gets corrupted and it would be like the day I made the
>>>>> image...... hmmmm.... google it! I found system rescue cd! (
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_**Page<http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page>)
>>>>> DOes this sound good? What do you all
>>>>> recommend? You know, on the first page about this one of the programs
>>>>> is
>>>>> partimage and they say that one of the limitations of it is that it
>>>>> does
>>>>> not support ext4 filesystem. hmmmmm.... after a bit of reading me
>>>>> thinks
>>>>> this doesn't work with ext4 even though the 'Main Page' says it does.
>>>>> Do
>>>>> any of you know any differently?..... hmmmmm..... I've been looking but
>>>>> all
>>>>> of the copy programs say  they support ext2 & 3 but not 4. What do you
>>>>> say?
>>>>> --
>>>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen