From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 2 22:11:11 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8BC4106564A for ; Wed, 2 Mar 2011 22:11:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from mail3.sea5.speakeasy.net (mail3.sea5.speakeasy.net [69.17.117.42]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 81C578FC1B for ; Wed, 2 Mar 2011 22:11:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 16666 invoked from network); 2 Mar 2011 22:11:10 -0000 Received: from dsl092-078-145.bos1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO be-well.ilk.org) ([66.92.78.145]) (envelope-sender ) by mail3.sea5.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 2 Mar 2011 22:11:10 -0000 Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147) id 1358D5082A; Wed, 2 Mar 2011 17:11:08 -0500 (EST) From: Lowell Gilbert To: Ed Flecko References: Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:11:08 -0500 In-Reply-To: (Ed Flecko's message of "Wed, 2 Mar 2011 13:50:19 -0800") Message-ID: <44hbbl9nr7.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fastest way to get an entire FBSD system back online? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:11:11 -0000 Ed Flecko writes: > I confess I'm more familiar with "Windows" and for years I have > "Ghosted" PCs as a very fast way to get an entire PC back online in > the event of a drive failure. I can easily get a PC back online within > the hour using "ghost" (or some drive imaging software). > > Is there something similar in the FBSD arena?...some form of "backing > up" a server so that if a drive fails, upon replacement of the > drive(s), the OS can be very quickly recovered from a backup (of some > sort), or from an image, etc.? > > What options are available??? Suggestions??? Lots of options. - The standard backup technique is dump(8)/restore(8). It takes more than an hour for me to get back up from a dead disk, but I think it would be much faster if I didn't encrypt my backups. [Also, size and speed of disks and backup media will matter, of course.] - There are "ghost" style programs that understand BSD filesystems. I don't really see any advantage to these. - mirroring techniques. This would mean that when a disk dies, you already have a copy of it ready to step in. Some forms of RAID will do this for you, there's a GEOM class that will mirror any filesystem on it, or you could run a separate program (e.g., rsync to copy changed files over on a schedule). Other than, possibly, the "ghost" options, you'll find more information on all of these concepts and terms in the FreeBSD Handbook.