Best Backup Solutions for Desktop Linux

Despite common misconceptions, there are more solid backup solutions for desktop Linux than most people might suspect. Best of all, many of them are completely free with the code being open source. Some of them however, are not.

In this piece, I will give you a break down of each of them. How they can work in your specific situation, where you will find the applications, and I'll provide the needed details so that you can better decide what option is best for you.

gmirror - recovering from a failed HDD

I like RAID. On my development server, I use both hardware and software RAID. For hardware RAID on FreeBSD, I like 3Ware. For software RAID, I tend to use gmirror, because I don't need more than RAID-1.

Some time ago I added two 120GB HDD to this system. One was SATA, one was PATA. They were joined together via gmirror. Tonight I received some errors that one of the drives was failing. I replaced the drive, and recovered the mirror. I'll show you what I did, mostly so I know what to do the next time it happens, but also so you can see what to do as well.

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When Desktop Disaster Strikes, Linux Rides To The Rescue

A friend in need, the saying goes, is a friend indeed. And the next time your Windows PC goes belly-up at the worst possible time, your new best friend just might turn out to be a Linux rescue CD.

Linux is a popular choice for PC recovery and repair tasks for several reasons. For one thing, it is highly portable: Most distros offer "live" versions that can run entirely from a CD or other compact media. Some distros are so compact that they will fit on a USB drive or even on a set of floppy disks -- and still leave plenty of room for a suite of repair and recovery tools. That's helpful, since Linux supports a vast array of tools suitable for diagnosing PC problems and -- above all -- retrieving data from mangled, all-but-useless hard-disk file systems.

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SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCd is a Gentoo-based Linux distribution that specializes in repairing unbootable computer systems and recovering data after a system crash. Since it is loaded with system utilities, its main aim is to provide a handy tool to anyone that needs to perform computer admin tasks.

I already have micro distros like SliTaz and DSL that I may someday use in case of emergency. However, I needed a more powerful and more complete rescue tool. SystemRescueCd is the answer.

System Rescue CD 1.0.3 RELEASED

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and recovering your data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It is very easy to use: just boot the CDROM. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

Rescuing files from lost+found

The lost+found directory included in (Unix) file systems is usually empty. Only used when fsck doesn't know what to do with files that have lost their place in the file system, they stand as a temporary holding place for those rare instances in which fsck can't put everything back together after file systems have become corrupt in some way. If you see files in lost+found, you can expect them to look rather unusual.

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Backup an entire hard disk using 'dd' command

"The 'dd' command is one of the original Unix utilities and should be in everyone's tool box. It can strip headers, extract parts of binary files and write into the middle of floppy disks; it is used by the Linux kernel Makefiles to make boot images. It can be used to copy and convert magnetic tape formats, convert between ASCII and EBCDIC, swap bytes, and force to upper and lowercase."

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Back Up and Restore Your MySQL Database

Do you need to change your web host or switch your database server? This is probably the only time when you really think of backing up your MySQL data. If you’ve got a website with a database or your custom database running for your applications, it is imperative that you make regular backups of the database. In this article, I will outline two easy ways of backing up and restoring databases in MySQL.

Clonezilla

You're probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®, and its OpenSource counterpart, Partition Image. The problem with these software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You've probably also heard of Symantec's solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!

Create Your Own Cross-Platform Backup Server

Backing up your data on a regular basis is important, and turning a spare computer into a backup server is often the best way to make sure it gets done. But most methods require either a good deal of command-line learning or serve only one operating system. Not with Restore, a free, open-source backup system that can install or run from a live CD, work with any OS, and operate through a simple browser-based interface. Today I'll demonstrate backing up a Windows laptop to an older desktop, but you'll see how Restore can be easily molded to fit just about any home backup needs.

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The best Linux system repair disk graduates to 1.0

If you need to repair PCs, even if you don't use Linux as a rule, you should have a Linux repair CD. These self-booting Linux distributions give you all the software tools you need to bring all but the deadest computers back to life. The best of these distributions is, hands-down, SystemRescueCd.

I've been using SystemRescueCd for years, and it has saved my rump many times. With every new version, SystemRescueCd has continued to get better.

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How to fix your Windows MBR with an Ubuntu liveCD

Something happen to a windows Master Boot Record (MBR) that you’re responsible for? Want a very quick, very easy way to restore it with nothing but your craft, native intelligence and a liveCD?

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How to fix your Windows MBR with an Ubuntu liveCD

Something happen to a windows Master Boot Record (MBR) that you’re responsible for? Want a very quick, very easy way to restore it with nothing but your craft, native intelligence and a liveCD?

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Access Linux Files from Windows with Linux Reader

Dual-booters have long been able to get at their Windows-formatted files, but Windows certainly doesn't make it easy to go the other way 'round. Enter Linux Reader, a free Windows application that emulates the look and feel of the Windows XP Explorer and allows read-only access to ext2 and ext3-formatted drives, the most common formats for Linux installations.

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Hot Image Your PC's Hard Drive with DriveImage XML

You don't need a complicated boot CD or expensive software to create a restorable system disk image for your PC: free utility DriveImage XML can save a full, working snapshot of your Windows hard drive while you work on it. (That's hot.) When your PC crashes and burns or just slows down over time, the best insurance you can have is a mirror image of your operating system, complete with drivers, user settings, software applications, and documents in one place.

With DiskImage XML, imaging your PC's hard drive is a matter of a few clicks, no reboots required. Let's check it out.

Create A Backup Image of Your System with DriveImage

Freeware application DriveImage XML creates and restores images of any drive or partition on your system. That means that next time you freshly install Windows on your computer (whether XP or Vista), you can back up that clean and sparkling system state with DriveImage XML.

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Copy and Paste your Entire Hard Drive with Two Clicks with GParted

Using the GParted live CD you can copy and paste an entire hard drive with just two button clicks.

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Partition and Image Your Hard Drive with the System Rescue CD

You've just reinstalled Windows from scratch—again—but this time you want to preserve your sparkling clean setup for instant restoration down the road. Instead of dropping cash on Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, burn yourself a free, bootable Linux-based System Rescue CD. The System Rescue CD includes open source tools GParted and Partimage, which can create a new partition and save your fresh Windows installation as a restorable image for the price of zero dollars. Never stare at those creeping Windows installation progress bars again: With the System Rescue CD, you can have that fresh new Windows feeling any time you need it. Here's how.

How to restore a hacked Linux server

Every sysadmin will try its best to secure the system/s he is managing. Hopefully you never had to restore your own system from a compromise and you will not have to do this in the future. Working on several projects to restore a compromised Linux system for various clients, I have developed a set of rules that others might find useful in similar situations. The type of hacks encountered can be very variate and you might see very different ones than the one I will present, or I have seen live, but even so, this rules might be used as a starting point to develop your own recovery plan.

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Rescue Linux when it won't start

Despite its rock solid reputation, occasionally Linux can crash and fail to start back up. ZDNet details several steps you can take to help get your penguin back on its feet. The tips include restoring to the proper runlevel, managing multiple kernels, entering into rescue mode, and creating rescue CDs.

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