XS Backup and Disaster Recovery

This page deals with Disaster Recovery for the School Server (XS) and does not deal with backup and disaster recovery for the XO's. There are some ideas for these issues on the Nepal:Redundancy page.

Goals

1. The base XS can be restored by non-technical user w/out using the command-line and in less than 5 steps.
2. The data on the XS can be backed up without Internet access (May not be feasible)
3. Solution does not use backup tapes, zip drives, or other media that are expensive or other unavailable in countries like Nepal
4. Backup software must be open-source

The obvious solution is to use a program that backs up all the system files to a liveCD or LiveDVD and back up the data separately. It would be easiest to back up the data directories in /var, /home, and /var/library across the network using rsync. However, this necessitates a working WAN/Internet connection.

Possibilities

• Mondo Rescue
• LiveBackup
• System Rescue CD
• Rsync - for backing up data directories across the network. Are there any alternatives to rsync worth looking at?

Current Solution

The OLE Nepal team is focusing on Mondo Rescue and rsync for backing up the XS

Installing Mondo Rescue on XS-160

1. Download the Fedora Core 7 RPM's for Mondo Rescue here: http://mondorescue.muskokamug.org/fedora/7/ . You need the RPM's for afio, buffer, mindi, mindi-busybox, and mondo
   1. afio-2.4.7-1.i386.rpm
   2. buffer-1.19-1.i386.rpm
   3. mindi-busybox-1.2.2-3.fc7.i386.rpm
   4. mindi-1.2.4-1.fc7.i386.rpm
   5. mondo-2.2.4-1.fc7.i386.rpm
2. Install them using rpm, note you should put mindi-busybox before mindi
3. rpm -ivh afio....rpm buffer...rpm mindi-busybox...rpm mindi...rpm mondo...rpm
4. You're done!

Back up the XS Sytem Files

1. Login as root
2. Change the runlevel to 1 telinit 1 this is pretty crucial as it will shutdown mysql, apache, dhcpd, named, all the services that could change important during your backup
3. Type bash# mondoarchive note: don't type sudo, mondoarchive doesn't like sudo
4. Choose DVD if you are going to use DVD
5. Select Maximum compression to ensure everything fits on your DVD
6. Choose the DVD directory, /dev/scd0
7. Backup Path /
8. Exclude Paths, nothing for now, may want to exclude /library later as we will use this folder for storing user data
9. Alert, Verify Backups? Choose Yes
10. Alert - Is your kernel Sane? Choose Yes
11. Proceed? Yes
12. You will get a message at the end that Mondo Rescue couldn't create a boot image, ignore thi

Restore the XS System Files

1. Insert the MondoArchive DVD
2. Change your boot options so you boot from the DVD drive
3. At the boot: prompt, type nuke this will completely overwrite your install from the iso
4. You should be dropped down to a shell prompt. Type reboot and you're done

Backing up the XS Data

It looks like Moodle stores backups under /var/lib/moodle

rsync?