The document provides an extensive overview of Linux disaster recovery solutions, highlighting the importance of having a disaster recovery plan (DRP) beyond just backups. It compares various commercial and open-source solutions, outlining their pros and cons, and emphasizes the need for immediate action in case of disasters while ensuring system reliability through testing and proper recovery strategies. The document also includes insights from testing different solutions like Mondorescue, mkcdrec, and Relax-and-Recover (rear) on Linux systems.

1. Linux Disaster Recovery Solutions IT3 Consultants Gratien D’haese March 2008

2. Agenda What is Linux Disaster Recovery? Why are backups not enough? Commercial or Open Source? Comparing 3 GPL DR on Debian/ia64

3. Some Definitions What is Disaster Recovery? The process by which a business function is restored to the normal, steady state after a disaster What is Business Continuity The way that a business function will operate after a disaster, until such time as the normal, steady state is restored

4. What is Linux Disaster Recovery Like any other UNIX (including HP-UX) Linux is vulnerable for disaster to strike The question really is “What shall I do if a disaster strikes?” Dependent on: HW failure (boot disk lost) Lost everything (fire, water, earthquake, theft) The answer: “Act immediately”

5. Why are backups not enough? Backups of data are necessary! Are not enough in case of losing the OS! Reinstalling from scratch takes hours Fine-tuning of configurations takes days Even months later issues pop up! It is absolute necessary to foresee an inventory of HW and SW

6. Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) DRP addresses need to recover from an emergency with minimum impact to the enterprise Protects enterprise from major services failure Minimizes risk to enterprise from delays in providing services Guarantees reliability of standby systems by testing and simulation Minimizes personnel decision-making required during disaster recovery

7. Commercial or Open Source? There is no standard solution delivered with Linux as such The choice is do we go for a commercial or Open Source solution? Try before you buy I would say It doesn’t always work as promised Do we have test equipment? Don’t try it on production without a real DR test first!

8. Commercial Solutions (1) Storix’ Adaptable System Recovery www.storix.com AIX/Linux backup – DR – cloning – HW migration (favors TSM integration) Pro: Supports IA32 and IA64 platforms good support with regular updates V6.2 is able to make bootable USB disk incl. backup Contra: is a backup solution with DR capabilities GUI interface nice, but useless in DR scenarios Too tight with TSM Central server with clients model: administration overhead Without a valid license no recovery? Too much choices, hard to remember Backups are useless without Storix’ software

9. Commercial Solutions (2) Acronis’ True Image Echo Server for Linux www.acronis.com Backup/restore software with bare-metal DR possibilities Pro: Disk image restore Nice GUI based solution Good support Contra: Only x86 and x86_64 are supported Is primarily a backup/restore solution Console mode is a nightmare Backups are useless without acronis’ software

10. Commercial Solutions (3) Arkeia Options (of Arkeia Network Backup) www.arkeia.com DR from a central backup server Pro: Support GUI based Contra: Only x86 and x86_64 are supported Is primarily a backup/restore solution No DR possible without network (central backup server) DR scenario is Question/Answer game

11. Commercial Solutions Summary If you decide to go for a commercial solution and you are willing To pay for it Wait for updates in case of problems Need commercial support Good documentation Then go for Storix’ solution

12. Open Source Solutions (1) We have 3 types here DR optional with Open Source backup software Similar comments as with the commercial ones Completely dependent on backup solution Image makers (cloning) Disk to image or partition to image True DR Open Source software No focus on pure backups (incremental) Main focus on fast DR No fancy GUIs can be expected (nobody cares about a GUI if a disaster strikes)

13. Open Source Solutions (2) Bacula, the network backup tool www.bacula.org Is a network based backup/restore program competing with e.g. TSM, DP, a.o. Pro: Open Source DR CD-ROM creation based on mkCDrec Contra: DR is a option and runs behind with coding/fixing

14. Open Source Solutions (3) Partimage www.partimage.org Saves partitions to an image Pro: Open Source Image creation can be scheduled across network Good for exact cloning Contra: Need extra soft (SystemRescueCD) to restore image from scratch No explicit DR functionality No flexibility to other HW

15. Open Source Solutions (3) Clonezilla, a better ghost program clonezilla.sourceforge.net Saves partitions to an image Pro: Open Source Based on partimage Good for exact cloning across network (to 40 at a time) with clonezilla server Contra: Image creation done via special live CD, or via clonezilla-server and client program No explicit DR functionality Only for experienced users

16. Open Source Solutions (4) Mondorescue www.mondorescue.org/ Available since 2000 GPL DR supporting Linux (x86, x86_64, ia64) and FreeBSD (x86) Support major Linux distributions Target backup media includes CDR, DVD-R(w), USB/disks, tape, network Understands major file systems including LVM, soft- and hardware RAID

17. Open Source Solutions (5) Mondorescue Pro: Open Source with excellent support base (incl. HP) CLI and GUI interface Cloning supported Uses a fail-safe Linux kernel (mindi) Pretty good documentation Contra: Command line quite complicated to remember Relies on different sub-products (mindi, mindi-busybox, afio,…) Lacks integration with other backup solutions

18. Open Source Solutions (6) Make CD-ROM Recovery (mkCDrec) mkcdrec.ota.be Available since 2000 GPL DR supporting Linux (x86, x86_64, powerpc, sparc and ia64) Support major Linux distributions Target backup media includes CDR, DVD-R(w), tape/OBDR, USB/disks, network (NFS/CIFS) Understands major file systems including LVM, soft- and hardware RAID

19. Open Source Solutions (7) mkCDrec Pro: Open Source with excellent support base Only CLI with kiss in mind Cloning support Uses the active Linux kernel on rescue image Integrates with 3th party backup sw (DP, TSM,…) Contra: Only 1 main developer Documentation is minimal, but still enough/clear

20. Open Source Solutions (8) Relax and Recover (rear) rear.sourceforge.net Available since 2006 GPL DR supporting Linux (x86, x86_64, ia64) Support major Linux distributions Target backup media includes CDR, DVD-R(w), disk, network (NFS/CIFS), rsync Understands major file systems including LVM, soft- and hardware RAID

21. Open Source Solutions (9) Relax and Recover (rear) Pro: Open Source with excellent support base Only CLI with kiss in mind (LSB compliant) Extremely modular code Uses the active Linux kernel on rescue image Integrates with 3th party backup sw (TSM, DP) Contra: Linux kernel => 2.6.x Slow development (based on sponsoring) Lacks good documentation

22. LSB rules of ReaR Follows the Linux Standard Base rules Configuration files are under /etc/rear/ The scripts are stored under /usr/share/rear/ One main script /usr/sbin/rear rear is build around concepts: mkrescue mkbackup mkbackuponly recover dump

23. Architecture of ReaR rear dump: Dumping out configuration and system information System definition: ARCH = Linux-i386 OS = GNU/Linux OS_VENDOR = FedoraCore OS_VENDOR_ARCH = FedoraCore/i386 OS_VENDOR_VERSION = FedoraCore/6 Configuration tree: Linux-i386.conf : OK GNU/Linux.conf : OK FedoraCore.conf : missing/empty FedoraCore/i386.conf : missing/empty FedoraCore/6.conf : missing/empty site.conf : OK local.conf : OK

24. Architecture of ReaR (cont'd) Shell scripts are stored under /usr/share/rear Scripts are kept together according workflows mkrescue (only make rescue image) mkbackup (including make rescue image) mkbackuponly (excluding make rescue image) recover (the actual recovery part) /etc/rear/recovery is being build dynamically

25. Workflow backup (or rescue) mkbackup – mkrescue Preparation (building the root file system layout) Analyse (disaster recovery environment creation) Creation of /etc/rear/recovery structure Analyse (building the rescue system) Build (copy all executables that are needed) Pack (kernel and initial ramdisk) Backup (optional) Output (copy to destination, PXE, ISO,...) Cleanup

26. Workflow recovery The same configuration files are read during the recovery workflow Recovery Process: Verify (integrity and sanity check) Recreate (file system layout) Restore (the backups including Operating System) Finalize (install boot loader, dump recovery log into /tmp of the recovered system)

27. Testing on Debian 4 (IA64) We tested mondorescue, mkcdrec and rear on the same fresh installed Linux IA64 is an new architecture (Linux based) X86 and x86_64 are well tested and will most likely work very well for all of them On the next slides we give our experience Only used the sources of the 3 products to start with…

28. Test mondorescue Prerequisites: gcc, g++, make, gawk, afio, bzip2, cdrecord, mkisofs, parted, libnewt-dev, lvm2, buffer Downloaded from ftp.mondorescue.org/src/ mondo-doc-2.24.tar.gz mondo-2.2.5.tar.gz mindi-busybox-1.7.3.tar.gz mindi-2.0.0.tar.gz Make DR archive: mondoarchive

29. mondoarchive

30. Boot mondorescue CD

31. Test mkCDrec Prerequisites: gcc, make, gawk, bzip2, cdrecord, mkisofs, parted, lvm2, rsync, iproute, bash Downloaded from mkcdrec.ota.be mkCDrec_v0.9.8.tar.gz Make DR archive: Edit Config.sh (change BOOTARCH, ELILO_DIR ) make

32. make (of mkcdrec)

33. New features in v0.9.9

34. Test ReaR Prerequisites: gawk, bzip2, cdrecord, mkisofs, parted, lvm2, rsync, iproute, mingetty, alien, lsb, bash Downloaded from rear.sf.net rear-1.6.tar.gz and rear-1.6-1.noarch.rpm Install as follow: alien –I rear-1.6-1.noarch.rpm Edit /etc/rear/Linux-ia64.conf change agetty into getty Make DR archive: rear mkbackup

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