From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 21 23:03:39 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 284D416A4CE for ; Thu, 21 Apr 2005 23:03:39 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mailgate1.dslextreme.com (mailgate1.dslextreme.com [66.51.199.94]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDC4243D48 for ; Thu, 21 Apr 2005 23:03:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jmlewis@dslextreme.com) Received: from www.dslextreme.com (unknown [192.168.7.122]) by mailgate1.dslextreme.com (Postfix) with SMTP id B8E706301D4 for ; Thu, 21 Apr 2005 15:01:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <5a30a6e91a41e8a626da.20050421160337.wzyrjvf@www.dslextreme.com> Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:03:37 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joshua Lewis" To: freebsd-questions@freeBSD.org User-Agent: DSL Extreme Webmail (www.dslextreme.com) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal X-DSLExtreme-MailGate-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-DSLExtreme-MailGate: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: jmlewis@dslextreme.com Subject: backup FreeBSD system X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: jmlewis@dslextreme.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 23:03:39 -0000 I have a working FreeBSD system that I love and...(Wow saying out loud I think I may need to seek a professional). Any way I would hate to loose it and was wondering if there is a way to make a duplicate system without weeks of configuration. Kind of like RAID Mirroring for a computer? I understand there is g4u (That would get the new system up and running quickly) but I think the hardware would be different enough that my custom kernel may not like it (Unless I could do that and boot into single user mode and compile a new kernel… Is that feasible?) I am probably going to load FreeBSD from scratch. Not hard at all. I can be done in a matter of 20 mins (When I told my boss that his jaw dropped. Try to load windows from scratch in 20 mins). I found a good doc on hardening a FreeBSD system on BSDGuides: http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/freebsd/security/harden.php That should only take me an hour. So how do I copy everything else? All my programs and such and keep them up to date. Let’s say once a week Server-A copies its self to ServerB so if one died I could throw the other on the net change it's IP and computer name and be done with it. Can I just copy /usr to the other system and be done with it? Is it a bad idea to setup a cron job to do that once a week or more? Should I tar it first then copy it and untar it? Thank you, Joshua Lewis