Server Backup Query

[Colin Watson]

On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 01:34:45AM +0000, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> Jay Ridgley wrote:
> > Since there are no user files on my firewall/server system (it is
> > headless) running the server edition of 10.04 LTS what should I
> > backup other than /etc so that I have any system configuration files
> > that are unique to my environment?
> 
> It depends on what's important, and what you're backing up against. I
> like the idea of routinely rsyncing the entire system to a backup
> drive - generally the bits that change frequently are the bits you
> particularly want, and that gives you a really quick thing to restore
> off.

Full-system backups are what I do, and swear by.  Systems are small
enough these days compared to the size of plausible backup disks that it
isn't worth the time spent figuring out which bits might be recoverable
from elsewhere, and then actually recovering from elsewhere in the event
of a failure.  (Do use the --link-dest option to rsync, though, so you
can easily keep multiple backups without using lots of extra disk
space.)

Look at it this way: if your firewall fails, you're going to want it
back as soon as possible.  Is it going to be quicker and easier to
reinstall and then reapply backed-up bits of configuration - which
you'll be doing under stress, and perhaps with limited access to
Internet resources - or to just rsync the last backup onto a new disk
and maybe just reinstall the boot loader and such?

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]