Re: [Bobs-devel] Is this a good idea?

[Joe Z. <jz...@co...>]

mar...@nt... wrote:

>I have recently started playing with bobs.  Great product, bringing togeather the idea of rsync backup with a nice interface.
>
>Anyway, I was thinking that you could have a seperate image hard linked to current cld restore.  You could then boot using root over nfs  off of the restore image on your server, be back up straight away and rebuild your system while you carried on using the it.
>
>All you need to do is have a seperate grub.conf line pointing to the network share and a compatible kernel.  You should also have this on a boot cd incase you lose your boot partition.  You also need a different fstab on the restore image with the network address of the restore image.  Other than that though both images can be identicle using very little extra disk space,
>
>Problems?  I can think of two network bandwidth may make the system unusable while restoring and you may not want to boot from the current image (although thats just a matter of moving the hard links).  
>
>So what do people think.  I have certainly net booted off of my backup image successfully, but before I get too involved.  I wondered what others thought.  Am I onto something here or am I missing the obvious.  It wouldnt be the first time :). 
>
>Mark
>  
>
Very interesting idea. Let's see if I understand.

You'd have to setup bobs to backup the entire partition(s), at least the 
root (/) partition.
You share the bobs "current" directory via nfs.
You configure a grub option on the machine being backed up that points 
to the nfs shared "current" to boot from. I don't know how you'd do this 
in grub, root=?what?.

I didn't know you could boot from an nfs share. How would that look in 
grub.conf? or I guess that's just something that goes into /etc/fstab.
You'd have a separate /boot partition and another copy of the /boot 
partition and grub on CD?

Quite an interesting backup strategy. It has the possibility to get you 
up and running very quickly.

I'd love to see the /etc/fstab and grub.conf and any other pertinent 
configuration for a system you have set up this way so I can understand 
how to "net boot".

Joe