Very Computer

I'm "planning for the future" and I just want to toss out some thoughts and
ask for comments.

(Note for those who will immediately suggest that I buy this or that backup
product: That's all very fine and dandy, but using a product whose inner
workings I don't understand is too much like depending on voodoo.)

I have several SCO OpenServer 5.02 boxes, and I'd like to be prepared for
disasters like disk crashes. So here's what I see has to be done....

1) Create root and boot floppies (duh!). I've also sone a few extra things
like made sure that the device nodes for my mountable filesystems are in
there too. (/dev/oracle mounts on /oracle, etc etc). I've made sure that
all programs like cpio, tar, vi, are on the root floppies as well. Since my
various servers do not have identical h/w or configurations, I have a
floppy set for each.

2) Create cpio tape backup of "/". I've excluded my "application"
directories as they would be restored from more recent backup tapes after
the fact.

Now here's the stuff that I'm not sure of:

1) Assume a disaster happens and my HD melts down. I replace it. Now,
should I do a reinstall of the o/s, then restore the cpio over top of it to
get back to where I was? Or should I (working from the emergency floppy
set) try to re-fdisk, re-divvy, and restore to the HD from the cpio tape?
If the latter, there's a bunch of boot-related stuff at the beginning of
the HD. How do I get that back on? I assume I could dd it back on, but
where's the source of the dd? Should I dump something to the beginning of
my backup tape?

Seems to me that the first scenario may take longer, but be a lot less
complicated.

2) *CAN* I restore from a cpio tape to get my o/s back? Does that actually
work, or do I get something crippled and deformed?

3) assuming I can, and I want to do it from the floppy set, is the
procedure:
        fdisk -f /dev/rhd00 (my boot HD) and fdisk it as per original
        divvy the partitions as per original
            mkfs the partitions (I don't know if divvy will do this
automatically in such a situation)
            mount the /dev/root and /dev/boot to (maybe) /mnt and
/mnt/stand (hm. does this restore the bootup part of the disk?)
            cd to /mnt
            cpio -i from the tape with absolute pathname suppression

Can anyone with some experience in this area please comment?

I assume you have the source for SCO cpio and that makes you comfortable
with cpio??

Then you are aware that cpio is not capable of bit-level verification of
your precious data?

D/L one of the 'super-tar' demos, read the readme's, generate their far
more capable
emergency boot set and answer a couple of questions to automatically
setup cron backups that automatically do a BIT LEVEL verify of
everything written on the tape.

Then go home and don't worry about it at night.

And, yes, with a super-tar boot/root set you do NOT have to do anything
but boot from floppy, insert the FS diskette and then insert your last
backup tape.

;)

--
-------------------------------------------------
Pat Welch, UBB Computer Services
           A SCO Authorized Reseller  
           (209) 745-1401 Fax: (209) 745-5640
           Nationwide pager: (800) 608-7122

-------------------------------------------------

All I can offer is first-hand experience. EST's BRU (www.estinc.com) is
a great package that is affordable, does bit-level verification, has
great reporting facilities and creates recovery floppies for disaster
recovery.

Recovery consists of replacing the failed boot disk, booting from the
recovery floppies and restoring from tape.  I used to manage the HW
department of a VAR and we used BRU extensively.  I have personally
recovered half a dozen systems with it and my people have done many more
than that.

Check it out.

PS. No, I have no affiliation with EST or BRU.

--
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