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 LiveBackup and rsync for

Installing LiveBackup

Here is a File:LiveBackupQuickstart.pdf that explains how to set up LiveBackup in detail. This pdf was passed to me by a friend. I can't find it online.

1. First install qemu yum install qemu, this is useful for testing your backup