How do you backup 40+ Centos5.5 servers?
- by John Little
We are embarrassed to ask this question. Apologies for our lack of UNIX expertise.
We have inherited 40+ centos 5.5 servers, and don't know how to back them up.
We need low level clone type images so that we could restore the servers from scratch if we had to replace the HDs etc.
We have used the "dd" command, but we assume this only works if you want to back up one local disk to another, not 40 servers to one server with an external USB HD attached.
All 40 servers have a pair of mirrored disks (dont know if its HW or SW raid). Most only have 100MB used. SErvers are running apache, zend, tomcat, mysql etc. Ideally we dont want to have to shut them down to backup (but could).
We assume that standard unix commands like tar, cpio, rsync, scp etc. are of no use as they only copy files, not partitions, all attributes, groups etc. i.e. do not produce a result which can simply be re-imaged to a new HD to get the serer back from dead.
We have a large SAN, a spare windows box and spare unix boxes, but these are only visible to one layer in the network.
We have an unused Dell DL2000 monster tape unit, but no sw or documentation for it.
WE have a copy of symantec backup exec, but we have no budget for unix client licenses. (The company has negative amounts of money).
We need to be able to initiate the backup remotely, as we can only access the servers in person in an emergency (i.e. to restore)
Googling returns some applications to do this, e.g.
clonezilla - looks difficult to install and invasive.
Mondo, only seems to support backup if you are local to the machine.
Amanda might be an option, but looks like days/weeks of work to learn and setup?
Is there anything built into Centos, or do we have to go the route of installing, learning and configuring a set of backup softwares?
Any ideas? This must be a pretty standard problem which goggling doesnt give an obvious answer.
