rear

Relax-and-Recover (abbreviated rear) is a Linux Disaster Recovery framework

Relax-and-Recover (abbreviated rear) is the leading Free Software disaster recovery framework. Relax-and-Recover is written entirely in the native language for system administration: as bash scripts. Experienced users and system admins can adapt or extend the rear scripts to make it work for their particular cases. Relax-and-Recover is a modular framework with ready-to-go workflows for common situations. The basic workflow is as follows: Specify its configuration in /etc/rear/local.conf (cf. /usr/share/rear/conf/examples) and run "rear mkbackup" to create a backup.tar.gz on a NFS server and a bootable recovery ISO image for your system. A recovery medium which is made from the ISO image boots a special rear recovery system. Log in as root and run "rear recover" which does the following steps: It runs the rear installer that recreates the basic system, in particular the system disk partitioning with filesystems and mount points, then it restores the backup from the NFS server and finally it installs the boot loader. Finally remove the recovery medium and reboot the recreated system. Relax-and-Recover supports various kind of boot media for the recovery system (incl. ISO, PXE, OBDR tape, USB or eSATA storage), a variety of network protocols (incl. sftp, ftp, http, nfs, cifs) for storage and backup as well as various external third-party backup methods (incl. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, HP DataProtector, Symantec NetBackup, EMC NetWorker, FDR/Upstream, NovaBACKUP DC, Bareos, Bacula, rsync, rbme). Warning for users who like to upgrade Relax-and-Recover: Users who already use it must re-validate that their particular disaster recovery procedure still works. Additionally when you already use Relax-and-Recover and you upgrade software that is related to the basic system (e.g. kernel, storage, bootloader, init, networking) or you do other changes in your basic system, you must also re-validate that your particular disaster recovery procedure still works for you. You must test in advance that it works in your particular case to recreate your particular system with your particular recovery medium and that the recreated system can boot on its own and that the recreated system with all its system services still work as you need it in your particular case. You must have replacement hardware available on which your system can be recreated and you must try out if it works to recreate your system with your recovery medium on your replacement hardware. Be prepared that your system recovery fails to recreate your system. When it fails to recreate your system it is usually a dead end. Be prepared for a manual recreation from scratch. Always have all information available that you need to recreate your particular system manually. Manually recreate your system on your replacement hardware as an exercise. For more information see <a href="http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery">http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Disaster_Recovery</a> Relax-and-Recover comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the GNU General Public License.