[Discuss] How do you backup "/" with rsync?

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-12-10 19:40-0800 John Blomfield wrote:

> I have just thought of another option, instead of changing the BIOS to boot 
> the correct HD. Create a Linux boot CD and copy /boot directory to the CD, 
> with grub configured to show a menu that boots from the internal or external 
> HD.

This is somewhat similar to using the grub menu on the internal drive to
select the external drive for booting which is a method I have already shown
works fine if you add a stanza to the grub menu and swap disk identities in
/etc/fstab. Both methods will give you an everyday choice of which drive to
boot from without fiddling with the BIOS.

However, note I actually don't need that everyday choice since except for
emergencies and tests, I will always be booting from the internal drive. 
All I really want to do is to make sure the external drive can be booted
from in an emergency. Once such obvious emergency is if the internal drive
fails, and I am waiting for a replacement.  In that case, I am going to be
fiddling with the BIOS in any case, and both the CD grub method will fail
because the first drive will now be the external drive rather than the
(presumed defunct) internal one, and the grub menu on the CD will point to
the wrong drive.

I guess I could fiddle with the BIOS to make the external drive the first
drive, then adjust the CD grub menu accordingly for that change in drive
identity, but I might as well use the MBR of the external drive and the grub
menu on that drive (appropriately adjusted for the BIOS change in disk
identity) to do the same thing without the CD complication.

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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