Which backup utility

[dlite922]

Problem:
I want a backup utility for my CentOS 5 HP DL320 G2 server with Software Raid, Gnome installed but I do not want to install every backup utility there is to find the one i'm looking for: Linux Online - Category: Administration / Backup

What I need is to backup the server so that in case of hard drive failure I can my my system reimaged and up/live again within hours, not days.

There's no big network, so AMANDA scares me. and the little "easyBackup" programs I'm afraid won't be too thorough.

Is there away I can just copy the entire system once, then incremental backups.

I've got everything just write and it will take me days if not weeks to get it the same again if it crashed, so i can not just backup mysql and files. I need "Everything" backed up.

Choices I've been given from my (sometimes-confusing) friend Google:

Linux Online - Category: Administration / Backup
Backup Solutions for Linux

Can I just use...
Linux.com :: Back up like an expert with rsync

and give it "/" (root) as the srouce? So if I reinstalled CentOS, i can just reinstall resync and copy everything to destination. (Writing over the entire hard drive) then reboot?! I haven't done this, so that's why I ask.

I'm a petty n00b, I bow before you uber Gods of linux!

:D


Dan

[ashitpro]

Why don't you think over linux ghost images?
It helped me couple of time.
Bring you server to respectable condition and have a image.
If your server gets crash, you could just restore the image with no time.

[micmast]

This is a backup script I used a few times, works good

full backup:
tar cjvf archive.tar.bz2 / --exclude-dir=/mnt --exclude-dir=/tmp --exclude=*.bz2 --exclude=*.gz

incremental backup (this will show everything that has been modified in the last 24 hours
find / -type f -mtime -1 -print | tar cjvf archive.bz2 -T -

If you put this inside cron, you have a backup system. Offcourse you can extend this by adding a line that will upload the code to a server or save on a seperate harddrive.

[drhowarddrfine]

The most used backup solutions are tar, rsync and dump. They are all good. Many, many admins swear by dump.