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Full Partition Backups

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

PCQlinux ships two utilities partimage and rsync for backup

and restore functions.

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Partimage can be used to create an image of an entire

partition. The image can subsequently be used to restore a crashed partition or

corrupted data. The Partimage utility has a client and an optional server. The

client can connect to the server and copy the image of a partition onto it.

Similarly data can be restored back from the server across the network. Needless

to say, the client can take backup and restore it from a mounted network share

too.

Backups on Linux is no longer a bunch of commands but a simple to use graphical utility

PCQLinux 2006 bundles the Partimage client. Let us see how

it can be used to backup the image of a partition on a Windows share.

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Backup and Restore partitions with Partimage



Assume a Windows file server running at 192.168.3.1 with a share named

backups accessible to a user named backupuser with password as secret.

Create a directory named backupserver under /mnt on your

PCQLinux 2006 machine. Mount the Windows share as:

mount -t smbfs -o username=backupuser

//192.168.3.1/backups  /mnt/backupserver



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If you are running a Linux file server, then you can NFS

(Network FileSystem) mount the server's directory.

Incremental

backups

PCQLinux

2006 ships with Rsync for regular data backup jobs.

Rsync backs up only incremental data, saving time and network

bandwidth.



Suppose,

you need to regularly (say daily) backup the data in /home/common on your

PCQLinux 2006 file server running at 192.168.3.5 to a PCQLinux backup

server at 192.168.3.6. The backup data is to be stored in the directory

/home/commonbackup on the latter server. For this, we will use rsync and

also schedule it to run daily using the cron scheduler. The rsync program

at 192.168.3.5 will connect to the backup server at 192.168.3.6 and dump

the backup data to the directory /home/commonbackup. We will refer to

192.168.3.5 as the client and 192.168.3.6 as the server.



Setting

up the backup server



First we need to setup a rsync user and password (say backup and

secret) on the server. For this issue:



echo

“backup:secret” > /etc/rsyncd.scrt







chmod 600 /etc/rsyncd.scrt



Next

create a file named rsyncd.conf with the following contents:



motd

file = /etc/rsyncd.motd







log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log







pid file = /var/run/rsyncd.pid







lock file = /var/run/rsync.lock







transfer logging = yes











  
path = /home/commonbackup







   comment = Backup Server





read only = no



  
uid = 0



  
gid = 0



  
list = yes







  
auth users = backup



  
secrets file = /etc/rsyncd.scrt





Save

the file in the /etc directory.



To

start Rsync on the server issue 'ntsysv'. From amongst the list of

services, check rsync and click on Ok. Next issue:



service

xinetd restart



On

the rsync client



On the client machine, type in the following in a file called

dobackup.sh:



export

RSYNC_PASSWORD=secret



rsync

-a --verbose --compress  --exclude

*~ /home/common/* backup@192.168.3.6::commonbackup





Substitute

secret and backup (in  backup@192.168.3.6)

with the rsync user and password that you had specified above. Save the

file in the directory /etc/cron.daily and give it executable permissions

as:



chmod

+x /etc/cron.daily/dobackup.sh



This

should start backing up the data from 192.168.3.5 to 192.168.3.6 everyday

at 4:02 A.M. Note that only modified data flows across the network and

that too in a compressed form. To restore data from the server, issue the

command:



rsync

-a --verbose --compress  --exclude

*~ backup@192.168.3.22::commonbackup /home/common









Login as root. In a terminal window in KDE/GNOME or on the

Linux console, type 'partimage'. This will launch the graphical (to be precise,

a character based interface) interface of Partimage.

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For “Partition to save/restore”, select the partition

which you want to backup. Note that in case of dual boot machines, you can also

backup the Windows (FAT32 and NTFS) partitions. For 'Image file to create/use',

type in /mnt/backupserver/ hostname.gz. Substitute hostname with the name of the

PCQLinux machine. Press F5. On the next screen, press F5 again. Subsequently,

type in a description for the image for example — 'image of home partition at

server.pcqlabs.net'. Select Ok. This will create the image on /mnt/backupserver

named hostname.gz.000

To restore from a backup, first create a partition using

say MS fdisk or Linux fdisk. Fire up partimage. Select the partition you

created. For “Image file to create/use”, type in /mnt/backupserver/

hostname.gz.000.

For 'Action to be done', select 'Restore partition from an

image file'. Press F5. On the subsequent screen, press F5 again. This will

restore the backed up data in the partition you selected.

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The Partimage server



Instead of using a network share you can store all the images on a central
server using the Partimage server called partimaged. You can download the

Partimage server from ftp://fr.rpmfind.net/linux/ dag/redhat/el4/en/i386/dag/RPMS/partimage-server-0.6.4-1.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm.

Install the downloaded RPM as:


rpm -ivh

partimage-server-0.6.4-1.2.el4.rf.i386.rpm


Next we will need to specify which users can connect to the

Partimage server. Note that Partimage server uses system users — user swho

have account on the Linux machine. Create a user account named backupuser (say)

on the Linux machine as:

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useradd backupuser



passwd backupuser


When prompted specify the password for the backupuser. The

password is required to authenticate while connecting to the Partimage server.

Next append the username i.e. backupuser to the file named partimagedusers found

in /etc/partimaged directory. Next, login as root and run the Partimage server

as:

partimaged

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Let us assume that you have the Partimage server on a

machine with IP 192.168.3.2. Now from another machine, connected the network,

fire up partimage. As before, select the partition to backup. For “Image file

to create/use”, type in /var/partimaged/hostname.gz. The /var/partimaged is a

directory on 192.168.3.2 on which the images will be stored. Next, check

'Connect to the server' and fill in the IP address of the server. The subsequent

steps remain the same as above.

To restore, the steps remain almost the same. You will need

to fill in the IP address and the path to the image as /var/partimaged/hostname.gz.000.

With partimaged, you can maintain a central repository of images of all the

partitions holding critical data. Whenever you need to restore, point to the

server, select your image and done.

Hopefully, you will not need restore using partimage ever.

But if you ever do, ensure that you have a backup created.

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