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johnroberts

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Ghost and alternatives
Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 7:29am

I have been using Ghost 2003 for quite some time. It has saved my rear end on more than one occasions. I usually backup on bootable CDs/DVDs. My optical drives work just fine although they are not in the Ghost compatibility list.

Recently I was forced to hunt for alternatives because I needed to backup Linux machines with XFS formatted disks that Ghost does not support (only ext2/ext3). The solution I finally adopted is Clonezilla / DRBL. It is a bit more complicated than Ghost, but I have tested that it can clone successfully a smaller disk to a larger one (with multiple partitions...) in conjunction with GParted partition editor. Although they are still in beta testing, I would suggest one of either LiveCDs:
1. The GParted-Clonezilla LiveCD, found here:
http://gparted.free.fr/GParted-Clonezilla/
http://opensource.nchc.org.tw/GParted-Clonezilla/
or
2. The DRBL-LiveCD found here:
http://opensource.nchc.org.tw/drbl-live/testing/
they are both free tools. I have written a small how-to, here:
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.php?showtopic=52250
To backup, external storage (like a USB2.0 hard disk...) is needed and there is no support for media spanning, but an image on a dual layer DVD with bzip2 compression can hold about 25GB of data which is pretty much for a stable system image...

Greets

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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #1 - Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 11:38am thanks jr. i'll update the guide to include your findings 1st chance i get. http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1a.htm
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MrMagoo

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Re: Ghost and alternatives
Reply #2 - Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 5:27pm

As I have mentioned, I feel there are better ways to backup Linux than images.

Write a cron job to tar and gzip your home directory and your settings directory (/etc), then ftp the archives to another box. Should the worst happen, you simply reinstall the OS, install all of your applications, restore your files and settings from your archive, and you're done.

This way, backups happen automatically on whatever schedule you choose. Also, the backups take up much less room than a full image would. The head engineer at my work developed a backup system based on this same concept, and he can replace any server in about 7 minutes. I've personally been able to format my hard drive and upgrade my OS to the newest and shinyest version in about 30 minutes without even loosing my screensaver settings.

I agree that this wouldn't be feasible in Windows, but in Linux you can script the installation of applications, so it doesn't take weeks to find all your programs and manually reinstall them. Also, you don't have to worry about CD keys since you are using mostly free software. This makes images unnecessary in MOST settings.

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johnroberts

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Re: Ghost and alternatives
Reply #3 - Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 7:25pm

I agree on the server bit but that is completely different from a typical workstation or desktop. I am not talking about partial or day-to-day backups. In this case a backup service would be the best choice. I am talking about a disaster recovery image. To clone from an 80GB disk to a 320GB disk it took me 20minutes for the restore and about 45' to resize the partitions with GParted. But the actual restore was quite short (20'). If I had to reinstall the OS, it would take 30' + couple of hours to patch/update to the current level from the Internet + the extra time to install applications...
It is an option to script apps...but why bother and waste the extra time???
With bzip2, the entire hard disk image fits in a single DVD (about 3700MB...) with all my apps...20' from bare-metal to working system without bothering...and this strategy does not come in conflict with your first suggestion:
"... Write a cron job to tar and gzip your home directory and your settings directory (/etc), then ftp the archives to another box. Should the worst happen, you simply reinstall the OS, install all of your applications, restore your files and settings from your archive, and you're done..."
which is solid for a partial day-to-day backup...

Besides, having an image does help me sleep better and is a confidence builder every time I patch or if I decide to update to the next OS version. It is not a rarity to see in the Linux forums posts from help-seekers entitled "...update screwed-up my system...". All it takes is the DVD holding the image + the LiveCD and whatever happens...bang!! in 20' you are back in business.

Cheers

====================================&&Windoze by need, SUSE by choice, Puppy by belief&&http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyLinuxMainPage&&http://www.puppylinux.com/&&=================================

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Brian

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #4 - Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 7:34pm johnroberts wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 7:25pm: If I had to reinstall the OS, it would take 30' + couple of hours to patch/update to the current level from the Internet + the extra time to install applications... johnroberts, More like over a week in my case. I never want to do that.
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johnroberts

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #5 - Mar 22^nd, 2007 at 7:37pm Yep!!! To have ATLEAST one image is definitely a lifesaver
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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #6 - Mar 27^th, 2007 at 11:02pm Okay, today I finally got around to updating the guide to include your software. I also included links to this thread and to your (very nice) how-to guide. http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1a.htm
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johnroberts

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Re: Ghost and alternatives
Reply #7 - Mar 28^th, 2007 at 11:03am

Tks Rad!!!

Just a small but very important correction though. I am not a devel of either of the software packages, just a user.
All the credit goes to the NCHC team for Clonezilla and also to the GParted team...

And one important note: this software is not bound to Linux. Since it is a bootable CD (with Linux being just the CD operating system...)
it can be considered to be OS independent (as long as it is compatible with user hardware).

Also, since the last few days, my modified how-to is an official tutorial here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/How_to_B...

Greets

====================================&&Windoze by need, SUSE by choice, Puppy by belief&&http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyLinuxMainPage&&http://www.puppylinux.com/&&=================================

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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #8 - Apr 2^nd, 2007 at 6:51pm okay, i will tweak the guide to reflect those clarifications. kudos to you, jr.
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johnroberts

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Re: Ghost and alternatives
Reply #9 - Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 7:25am

Tks again Rad!

...and a couple more things I forgot to mention.
Clonezilla may lack fancy GUI, direct on-the-fly optical disk burning and spanning media support like Ghost 2003 (that I like and use as well...), BUT:
1. Unlike Ghost it has a much broader filesystem support
2. It has broad (and I mean BROAD - no comparison with Ghost boot floppies) support for external media (a.k.a. USB2.0 external disks and flash sticks), no need for temperamental drivers...

Greets

====================================&&Windoze by need, SUSE by choice, Puppy by belief&&http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyLinuxMainPage&&http://www.puppylinux.com/&&=================================

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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #10 - Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 12:55pm okay, jr. i updated the guide today to reflect your recent clarifications. [do you know that news-guy, named john roberts? i forget what network he works for.]
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johnroberts

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #11 - Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 3:12pm [...as long as I'm not the one to bring the bad ones...Nope, I don't remember either...]
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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #12 - Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 3:57pm here he is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts_(television_reporter)' there's also the supreme court judge. is that you, your honor?
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johnroberts

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #13 - Apr 4^th, 2007 at 8:04am Nope!...and I'm not related to Julia either just a guy in the crowd...
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Rad

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	Re: Ghost and alternatives Reply #14 - Apr 9^th, 2007 at 11:10am john, just a quick note to say that (yesterday) i moved the list of "ghost alternatives" to its (their) own page. see here: http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_alternatives.htm the previous page was getting long, as the number of alternatives grew. better this way.
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