source: MondoRescue/branches/2.2.10/mondo-doc/mondorescue-howto.sgml@ 2445

Last change on this file since 2445 was 2445, checked in by Bruno Cornec, 15 years ago

r3513@localhost: bruno | 2009-10-02 00:09:16 +0200

  • Not using busybox for mindi anymore (start - step needed for tests)
File size: 100.4 KB
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1<!DOCTYPE BOOK PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.1//EN" [
2<!ENTITY curdate "PBDATE">
3<!ENTITY curver "PBVER-rPBREV">
4
5<!ENTITY WWWB "http://www.mondorescue.org/">
6<!ENTITY WWW '<ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org">MondoRescue</ulink>'>
7<!ENTITY ML '<ulink url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mondo-devel">mondorescue mailing list</ulink>'>
8<!ENTITY gfdl SYSTEM "fdl.sgml">
9]>
10
11<book>
12
13<bookinfo>
14<title>MondoRescue HOWTO</title>
15<subtitle>
16Utilisation and Configuration of Mondo and Mindi under Linux (Version &curver;)
17</subtitle>
18<graphic fileref="images/protected-by-mondo" align="center">
19
20<pubdate>
21in its latest version the
22&curdate;
23</pubdate>
24
25<abstract>
26<para>
27This document describes the use of mondo and mindi tools to realize disaster recovery backup of your systems. It provides information on installation, backup and restore modes, hardware and software requirements, and answers to some frequently asked questions.
28The goals are to offer a general view of the functions and their best usages.
29Mondo Rescue is a Disaster Recovery Solution which allows you
30to effortlessly backup and interactively restore Linux, Windows and
31other supported filesystem partitions to/from CD/DVD-+R/RW media, tape,
32NFS, ... and Mindi Linux provides the bootable emergency restore
33media which Mondo uses at boot-time.
34</para>
35</abstract>
36
37<author>
38<firstname>Bruno</firstname>
39<surname>Cornec</surname>
40<affiliation>
41<orgname>MondoRescue Project</orgname>
42<address><email>bruno@mondorescue.org</email></address>
43</affiliation>
44</author>
45<author>
46<firstname>Conor</firstname>
47<surname>Daly</surname>
48<affiliation>
49<orgname>MondoRescue Project</orgname>
50<address><email>conor.daly_at_met.ie</email></address>
51</affiliation>
52</author>
53<!--
54Hugo Rabson
55Mikael Hultgren
56Stan Benoit
57Randy Delfs
58Cafeole
59Bryan J. Smith
60-->
61
62<copyright>
63<year>2000-2006</year>
64<holder role="mailto:bruno@mondorescue.org">Bruno Cornec</holder>
65</copyright>
66
67<legalnotice>
68<title>License</title>
69<para>
70</para>
71<para>
72This HOWTO is a free documentation. you may copy, redistribute and/or modify it under the terms of the
73<Link LinkEnd="gfdl">
74GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
75</link>.</para>
76<para>
77or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts. This document is distributed hoping it will be useful, but <emphasis>without any guaranty</emphasis>; you're completely responsible of its use, and coulnd't complain in case it doesn't work, or even if it breaks the hardware. All the software included in it, if not already copyrighted is released under the GPL.
78</para>
79</legalnotice>
80
81<revhistory>
82<revision>
83 <revnumber>2.0.7</revnumber>
84 <date>2006-05-16</date>
85 <authorinitials>Bruno Cornec</authorinitials>
86 <revdescription>
87 <para>
88 Integration of a chapter on HOWTO run mondo interactively using cron written by Conor Daly
89 </para>
90 </revdescription>
91</revision>
92<revision>
93 <revnumber>2.06</revnumber>
94 <date>2006-01-16</date>
95 <authorinitials>Bruno Cornec</authorinitials>
96 <revdescription>
97 <para>
98 First SGML version publically available, remade from the HTML docs of the project.
99 </para>
100 </revdescription>
101</revision>
102</revhistory>
103</bookinfo>
104
105<toc></toc>
106<lot></lot>
107
108
109<chapter id="intro">
110<title>About this Guide</title>
111
112<sect1 id="intro-purpose">
113<title>Purpose / Scope of this Guide</title>
114
115<para>
116This HOWTO serves to help people get started with using
117mondo/mindi as way to backup/restore their system. This is a work
118constantly evolving. It was started by Hugo Rabson and has
119since been worked upon by a number of people. See the
120'<ulink url="&WWWB;about.shtml#devteam">About</ulink>' web
121page for a list of members of the development team.</para>
122
123<para>There are many ways to contribute to the Linux movement
124without actually writing code. One of the most important is writing
125documentation, allowing each person to share their knowledge with
126thousands of others around the world. This HOWTO is designed to
127help you get familiar with how Mondo/Mindi works.</para>
128
129<para>
130Opinions expressed here are those of the authors.
131Informations are provided in the aim to be useful to the readers.
132However, there can't be, through this document, any warranty of any kind
133on the way it works on your systems, nor the author could be responsible for any problem caused by the use of these informations.
134However, software editors don't garantee you a lot either (re-read the contracts).
135</para>
136</sect1>
137
138<sect1 id="intro-newversion"><title>New versions of this document</title>
139
140<para>The newest version of this document can always be found on
141MondoRescue's homepage &WWW;.</para>
142<para>
143If you make a translation of this document into another language, please let meknow so that I can include a reference to it here.
144</para>
145</sect1>
146
147<sect1><title>Suggestions / Feedback</title>
148<para>
149I rely on you, the reader, to make this HOWTO useful. THis HOWTO is probably incomplete even if it tries to be accurate to the best of our knowledge.
150If you have any suggestions, corrections, recommandations or congratulations :-) don't hesitate to send them to me
151<email>bruno@mondorescue.org</email>,
152and I will try to incorporate them in a next revision or to the &ML;;
153e-mail the list at
154<ulink url="mailto:mondo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">mondo-devel@lists.sourceforge.net</ulink>;
155tell us what is wrong and how it should be fixed.
156Include the section title and recommended changes. Whenever possible, include
157the exact, spell-checked, grammar-checked text that you think would
158improve the document.
159</para>
160<para>See Mondo's
161 <ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/support.shtml">Support</ulink> page for
162more information.
163</para>
164<para>
165Please note that we do our best to help everyone but it is
166difficult for us to help you if you do not attach a log file to
167your e-mail. Let me say that again - attach your log file to your
168e-mail! Thank you. Without it we can't offer
169any tangible help because you aren't either. That's what the log
170file is for. It is located at <filename>/var/log/mondoarchive.log</filename>; and <filename>/var/log/mindi.log</filename> (if called alone) or at <filename>/var/log/mondorestore.log</filename>
171</para>
172<para>
173This document was originaly written by native english speakers, but is maintained by a non-native english speaker so help me correct mistaques (sic) instead of rumbling that I've done one :-)
174</para>
175<para>
176I am also willing to answer general questions on MondoRescue, the best I can.
177Before doing so, please read all of the information in this HOWTO, and then send me detailed information about the problem, especially including the logs generated by the tools, or traces obtained (Did I say that already :-].
178</para>
179<para>
180If you publish this document on a CD-ROM or in hardcopy form, a complimentary copy would be appreciated; mail me for my postal address. Also consider making a donation to the Linux Documentation Project to help support free documentation for Linux. Contact the Linux HOWTO coordinator,
181Guylhem AZNAR <email>guylhem@rrremovethis.oeil.qc.ca</email>.
182</para>
183</sect1>
184
185<sect1 id=intro-thanks><title>Aknowledgements</title>
186
187<para>Thanks goes to these people for helping and adding to this
188HOWTO.</para>
189
190<para>Document maintainer:</para>
191<itemizedlist mark="bullet" spacing="Compact">
192<listitem>
193<para>Bruno Cornec</para>
194</listitem>
195</itemizedlist>
196<para>Original Design Assistance by:</para>
197<itemizedlist>
198<listitem>
199<para>Xion Network.com</para>
200</listitem>
201</itemizedlist>
202<para>Original Document Assistance by:</para>
203<itemizedlist>
204<listitem>
205<para>Cafeole</para>
206</listitem>
207<listitem>
208<para>Troff</para>
209</listitem>
210<listitem>
211<para>Randy Delfs</para>
212</listitem>
213<listitem>
214<para>Mikael Hultgren</para>
215</listitem>
216</itemizedlist>
217<para>Original LinuxDoc and LaTeX Reformat by:</para>
218<itemizedlist>
219<listitem>
220<para>Bryan J. Smith</para>
221</listitem>
222</itemizedlist>
223<para>Original DocBook Reformat by:</para>
224<itemizedlist>
225<listitem>
226<para>Mikael Hultgren</para>
227</listitem>
228</itemizedlist>
229<para>Original author; 1.6x material:</para>
230<itemizedlist>
231<listitem>
232<para>Hugo Rabson</para>
233</listitem>
234</itemizedlist>
235
236</sect1>
237</chapter>
238
239<chapter id="quickstart"><title>QuickStart</title>
240<itemizedlist mark="bullet" spacing="Compact">
241<listitem>
242<para>We recommend that you read this complete
243HOWTO. However, if you are too busy or impatient, then
244please use this QuickStart guide to stay out of trouble.</para>
245</listitem>
246<listitem>
247<para>Install the tarball, RPM, or DEB mindi and mondo
248packages. (see <link linkend="installation">Installation</link>
249for more details)</para>
250</listitem>
251<listitem>
252<para>Execute as root (type 'su -' to become root if you are not
253logged in as root)</para>
254<para></para>
255
256<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
257<row>
258<entry>
259
260bash# mondoarchive
261
262</entry>
263</row>
264</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
265
266</listitem>
267</itemizedlist>
268<para></para>
269
270<informaltable><tgroup cols="2"><tbody>
271<row>
272<entry>
273<ulink url="images/mamain.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
274<imagedata fileref="images/mamain-mini">
275</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
276</ulink>
277</entry>
278<entry>
279Choose from the list of supported backup media types. The media you
280will use most often are CD/DVD-+R, CD/DVD-+RW, tape, NFS and hard disk. If
281you want to backup/restore over a network, choose 'NFS'. If you
282want to backup/restore to/from a local partition or if you simply
283want to store the ISO images in a local directory until you have
284time or facilities to burn them to CD's, choose 'hard disk'. If you
285choose 'CD/DVD-+R[W]' or 'tape' then in general your hardware will be
286detected and configured for you.
287</entry>
288</row>
289<row>
290<entry>
291<ulink url="images/maburnproof.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
292<imagedata fileref="images/maburnproof-mini">
293</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
294</ulink>
295</entry>
296<entry>
297 If you are backing up to CD/DVD-+R[W] then Mondo will ask you if your CD
298burner has BurnProof technology, is inside a laptop, or is
299otherwise eccentric. If you are backing up to a tape streamer then
300you will not see this message.
301</entry>
302</row>
303<row>
304<entry>
305<ulink url="images/macompression.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
306<imagedata fileref="images/macompression-mini">
307</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
308</ulink>
309</entry>
310<entry>
311How much compression do you want? None, if your tape streamer has
312built-in hardware compression. Maximum, if your CPU is blazingly
313fast. Average should do just fine for most situations.
314</entry>
315</row>
316<row>
317<entry>
318<ulink url="images/mainclude.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
319<imagedata fileref="images/mainclude-mini">
320</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
321</ulink>
322</entry>
323<entry>
324If you want to backup the whole computer (excluding /sys and /proc,
325naturally) then leave this as / which is the default. Otherwise,
326specify subsets, (e.g. /usr/local /home ) being sure to put a space
327in between each path.
328</entry>
329</row>
330<row>
331<entry>
332<ulink url="images/maexclude.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
333<imagedata fileref="images/maexclude-mini">
334</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
335</ulink>
336</entry>
337<entry>
338If you are backing up your whole computer then you might want to
339exclude certain directories, e.g. /shared/MP3. Please specify them
340in the 'exclude directories' dialog box. Please put a space in
341between each path, e.g. /shared/private /scratch /nfs /windows
342</entry>
343</row>
344<row>
345<entry>
346<ulink url="images/makernel.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
347<imagedata fileref="images/makernel-mini">
348</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
349</ulink>
350</entry>
351<entry>
352Is your kernel sane? Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and Slackware users
353should in general say 'yes' because these vendors are good at
354producing reliable kernels. If you are using Gentoo or LFS
355then your kernel might be non-standard, in which case say 'no' to
356use Mondo's failsafe kernel (provided separately).
357</entry>
358</row>
359<row>
360<entry>
361<ulink url="images/maverifyq.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
362<imagedata fileref="images/maverifyq-mini">
363</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
364</ulink>
365</entry>
366<entry>
367If you want to verify the archives after writing them to media, say
368'yes' here. If you have absolute faith in your hardware and your
369Linux distribution, say 'no'... and a little prayer.
370</entry>
371</row>
372<row>
373<entry>
374<ulink url="images/maproceedq.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
375<imagedata fileref="images/maproceedq-mini">
376</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
377</ulink>
378</entry>
379<entry>
380If you are sure you want to go ahead, say 'yes' and find something
381else to do while Mondo backs up your computer. If you say 'no' then
382you will be unceremoniously dumped at the shell prompt. :-)
383</entry>
384</row>
385<row>
386<entry>
387<ulink url="images/1.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
388<imagedata fileref="images/1-mini">
389</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
390</ulink>
391</entry>
392<entry>
393The backup process will now commence. There are some pre-backup
394tasks to be carried out first but the backup is essentially
395underway. To simplify the backup process, you were asked a series
396of questions. Next time, if you like, you could call mondoarchive
397with various command-line switches to control its behavior, instead
398of answering a series of questions. See the man page for details.
399</entry>
400</row>
401<row>
402<entry>
403<ulink url="images/3.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
404<imagedata fileref="images/3-mini">
405</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
406</ulink>
407</entry>
408<entry>
409Mondo will make a catalog of all files to be backed up. This may
410take up to five minutes. The list of files will be divided into
411sets, approximately 4 MB (before compression) of files per set.
412This typically takes one minute.
413</entry>
414</row>
415<row>
416<entry>
417<ulink url="images/4.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
418<imagedata fileref="images/1-mini">
419</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
420</ulink>
421</entry>
422<entry>
423Mondo calls Mindi. Mindi generates bootable media image and
424auxiliary data disk images which are based on your existing Linux
425distribution and filesystem. That way, you can be sure Mondo's
426tools will be compatible with your existing filesystems and
427binaries: Mondo's tools are your tools. Mindi takes up to five
428minutes to run.
429</entry>
430</row>
431<row>
432<entry>
433<ulink url="images/5tape.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
434<imagedata fileref="images/5tape-mini">
435</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
436</ulink>
437</entry>
438<entry>
439Finally, Mondo begins backing up your computer. This process may
440take a few minutes or a few hours, depending on how much data you
441are archiving, how fast your CPU is, how much RAM you have, and so
442on. It will backup your regular files and then your large files
443(files larger than approximately 32MB). If you have opted to verify
444your backups, Mondo will do that too.
445</entry>
446</row>
447</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
448
449<itemizedlist>
450<listitem>
451<para>Try to boot from the first media of the backup.
452Choose 'Compare Mode' by typing compare at the boot screen.
453</para>
454</listitem>
455<listitem>
456<para>If you can boot, fine. If not, make a Mindi "Test" CD to
457checkout the compatibility of your system. (see
458<link linkend="test-mindi">Testing Mindi</link> for more
459details). Remove the media; boot your computer as usual;
460execute as root</para>
461<para></para>
462<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
463<row>
464<entry>
465
466 bash# mindi
467</entry>
468</row>
469<row>
470<entry>
471 bash# cd /var/cache/mindi
472
473</entry>
474</row>
475</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
476
477<para>(for CD-R)</para>
478<para></para>
479<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
480<row>
481<entry>
482bash# cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=4 -eject -v mindi.iso
483</entry>
484</row>
485<row>
486<entry>
487bash# wodim dev=0,0,0 speed=4 -eject -v mindi.iso
488</entry>
489</row>
490</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
491
492<para>(for CD-RW)</para>
493<para></para>
494<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
495<row>
496<entry>
497bash# cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=4 blank=fast -eject -v mindi.iso
498</entry>
499</row>
500<row>
501<entry>
502bash# wodim dev=0,0,0 speed=4 blank=fast -eject -v mindi.iso
503</entry>
504</row>
505</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
506
507<para>Reboot your system with the created Mindi CD, with the BIOS
508set to boot from CD. If the result is a command line in 'Expert'
509mode, your system checks out. Remove the CD and reboot your
510system.</para>
511</listitem>
512<listitem>
513<para>If you still cannot boot from Mindi's CD then please e-mail
514the &ML; for help.
515</para>
516</listitem>
517</itemizedlist>
518<para>When making a backup on a live system, there will always be
519processes running that will write out data on the system after you
520have made the backup and before you have made the compare, this
521will result in difference showing up when comparing your backup.
522For a full explanation and what can be done to avoid this, please
523read this section.</para>
524<itemizedlist>
525
526 <listitem>
527<para>This QuickStart covers the ideal case. Upon receiving any
528system feedback/errors, read each related HOWTO section.</para>
529<para>Example 2-1. A test backup of your /home directory to CD-Rs
530using the command line</para>
531<para></para>
532<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
533<row>
534<entry>
535
536bash# mondoarchive -OVc 4 -I /home -gF
537
538</entry>
539</row>
540</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
541
542<para>The 'c' means you must be writing to CD-Rs, not CD-RWs (the
543latter would require 'w' instead of 'c'). The '4' is the speed of
544your CD writer. The string after -I is the path to be backed up.
545The '-gF' means you are going to see the pretty yellow-on-blue
546screen instead of the boring white-on-black screen. :) It also
547means Mondo will not offer to create physical boot media for
548you. It is assumed that you are able to boot from the CD which
549Mondo has generated.</para>
550<para>Example 2-2. A backup of your whole filesystem to NFS using
551the command line</para>
552<para></para>
553<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
554<row>
555<entry>
556
557 bash# mkdir -p /mnt/nfs
558</entry>
559</row>
560<row>
561<entry>
562 bash# mount nfs://192.168.1.28:/home/nfs /mnt/nfs
563 </entry>
564</row>
565<row>
566<entry>
567 bash# mondoarchive -OVn nfs://192.168.1.28:/home/nfs -gF[...]
568 </entry>
569</row>
570<row>
571<entry>
572bash# umount /mnt/nfs
573 </entry>
574</row>
575<row>
576<entry>
577 bash# cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=4 -eject -v /var/cache/mindi/mindi.iso
578</entry>
579</row>
580</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
581
582<para>Note that you have to mount the NFS partition, backup to it,
583unmount it, and create a boot CD to allow you to restore from
584scratch if necessary. To reassure yourself that you will be able to
585restore from the NFS share even if your PC is wiped, please boot
586from the Mindi CD and type 'compare'. The on-screen instructions
587from that point on should be sufficient.</para>
588<para>Example 2-3. A backup of your whole
589filesystem to tape using the command line</para>
590<para></para>
591<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
592<row>
593<entry>
594
595bash# mondoarchive -OVt -d /dev/st0 -9 -L -g
596
597</entry>
598</row>
599</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
600
601<para>In this case, we assume Syslinux is incompatible with your
602boot media. For some reason, some BIOSes just don't like Syslinux.
603If you find this to be the case for your computer, please use '-L'
604to force Mondo to use LILO instead of Syslinux as the boot loader
605for its media. (NB: This has nothing to do with which boot
606loader your hard drive uses.) Also, it is a good habit to specify
607your tape streamer with '-d &lt;device&gt;'. You don't usually need
608to but it's good to be on the safe side. Some computers call your
609tape streamer /dev/osst0, some call it /dev/ftape, ...
610Also, depending on the tape streamer model, a tape should be inserted
611in the tape drive before starting mondoarchive, otherwise it may not
612recognize the drive.</para>
613</listitem>
614</itemizedlist>
615
616</chapter>
617
618<chapter id="overview"><title>Overview</title>
619
620<sect1 id="overview-mondorescue">
621<title>Mondo Rescue</title>
622<para>Mondo Rescue backs up your file system to CD, tape, NFS
623(archives stored remotely) or ISO's (archives stored locally).
624Mondo uses afio as the backup engine; afio is a well-respected
625replacement for tar. In the event of catastrophic data loss, you
626may restore some or all of your system, even if your hard drives
627are now blank. Mondo Rescue can do a lot of other cool
628things:</para>
629<itemizedlist>
630<listitem>
631<para>You can use Mondo to clone an installation of Linux. Just
632backup the crucial stuff and exclude /home, /var/log, etc.</para>
633</listitem>
634<listitem>
635<para>You can backup a non-RAID file system and restore it as RAID
636including the root partition (if your kernel supports that).</para>
637</listitem>
638<listitem>
639<para>You can backup a system running on one format and restore as
640another format.</para>
641</listitem>
642<listitem>
643<para>You can restructure your partitions, e.g. shrink/enlarge,
644reassign devices, add hard drives, etc, before you partition and
645format your drives. Mondo will restore your data and amend
646/etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab accordingly.</para>
647</listitem>
648<listitem>
649<para>You can backup Linux/Windows systems, including the boot
650sectors. Mondo will make everything right at restore-time.
651(However, do run "Scandisk" when you first boot into Windows, just
652in case.)</para>
653</listitem>
654<listitem>
655<para>You can use your Mondo backup CD to verify the integrity of
656your computer.</para>
657</listitem>
658</itemizedlist>
659<para>Mondo's principal virtue is that it protects you from the
660problems that can arise when you reinstall completely from scratch.
661If you want to wipe and restore your system every year just as a
662matter of 'good practice', Mondo is not for you. However, if you
663want to get up and running again in a hurry after someone breaks
664into your computer and wipes it (or if you accidentally wipe it
665yourself) then Mondo is definitely for you. It will permit you to
666roll back to a known-good installation in a very short period of
667time, sometimes as little as twenty minutes. Even if you backup
668large amounts of data to tape daily and do not want to add yet
669another backup regime, please consider backing up the core
670filesystem (i.e. everything but the directories containing your
671huge database and your prizewinning novel) every month or so, just
672in case. You will be glad you did.</para>
673<para>What is Mondo not?</para>
674<para>Mondo is not an everyday backup program. It is not designed
675to replace tar, afio, kbackup, etc. Mondo is designed to make it
676possible to recover from scratch if necessary. Tar and afio offer a
677quick, convenient way to backup small sets of files, sometimes to
678removable media.</para>
679</sect1>
680
681<sect1 id="overview-mindi">
682<title>Mindi</title>
683<para>
684Mindi Linux creates a set of boot/root media images
685that will let you perform basic system maintenance on your Linux
686distro. The principal virtues of Mindi's boot disks are the fact
687that they contain your kernel, modules, tools and libraries. You
688can ask for additional binaries (or other files) to be included on
689the kit. The libraries will be added for you.
690</para>
691<para>Whichever modules were loaded at backup-time, they are
692reloaded at boot-time. So, in theory, you will boot into almost the
693same environment as you were in when you backed up. If you want to
694add files to your Mindi boot disks, edit '&lt;INSTALLPATH OF
695MINDI&gt;/mindi/deplist.txt' and add the files to that list. The
696added files and dependencies, will be spread across the data disks
697at run-time.
698</para>
699<para>Mindi makes sure that Mondo has all the tools it needs at
700boot-time. Mondo uses fdisk, mkfs, cat, less, more, afio, gzip,
701bzip2, your keyboard configuration, your glibc libraries, your
702other libraries, your kernel, your modules, ... which is a lot of tools!
703Mindi takes care of all that, so that Mondo can get on with the job of backing
704up or restoring your data.
705</para>
706<para>Mindi is also handy for making boot CDs/disks which stand on
707their own. You do not need Mondo. Indeed, if you like, you could
708use another backup/restore program with Mindi. Just add it to
709Mindi's dependency list (type 'locate deplist.txt' to find it).
710Mindi will include your software on its boot CD/disks the next time
711you run mindi.
712</para>
713</sect1>
714
715
716<sect1 id="overview-linuxbackup">
717<title>Linux Backup</title>
718<para>Mondo Rescue and Mindi Linux are used primarily as Linux
719backup and cloning tools. The fall in prices of CD-RW drives and
720writable discs will allow current users to keep good backups and
721future users to leverage the cloning capability.</para>
722<para>Tape drives are more likely to suit your needs if you run a
723larger installation (or have lots of MP3's). Warning! OnStream
724drives do not play well with Mondo. I do not know why. It is, in my
725opinion, something which OnStream should look into. Mondo uses
726fopen(), fread(), fwrite() and fclose() to interact with tape
727drives. That works for most drives but some drives just don't like
728that.
729Also, depending on the tape streamer model, a tape should be inserted
730in the tape drive before starting mondoarchive, otherwise it may not
731recognize the drive.</para>
732<para>Mondo Rescue has been tested thousands of times on various computers.
733It has worked for them.
734Thousands of users testify to Mondo's stability and its ease of
735use. However, please test it on your own system before you rely on
736it. In fact, do not rely on any software until you have tested it
737to see if it performs as expected.</para>
738<para>To establish that Mondo will behave well in an emergency,
739please be prepared. Run a test backup as follows:-</para>
740<itemizedlist>
741<listitem>
742<para>Run mondoarchive without any command-line options.</para>
743</listitem>
744<listitem>
745 <para>Backup a subset of files - e.g. /usr/local - to CD or
746 tape. Say 'yes' when asked if you want to verify them.</para>
747</listitem>
748<listitem>
749 <para>If you are not backing up to CD, please create boot
750 media when prompted.</para>
751</listitem>
752</itemizedlist>
753<para>Next, restore archives to your live filesystem.</para>
754<itemizedlist>
755<listitem>
756<para>When mondoarchive terminates, run mondorestore without any
757command-line options.</para>
758</listitem>
759<listitem><para>Insert the media when prompted.
760 Press &lt;Enter&gt;. Wait a moment.</para></listitem>
761<listitem><para>Select a subset of files to restore, e.g. /usr/local/man
762 and /usr/local/bin. Hit OK.</para></listitem>
763<listitem><para>Restore files to /tmp or /root/RESTORED or something
764 similar.</para></listitem>
765<listitem><para>When mondorestore terminates, compare the restored files
766 to the originals using cmp or diff.</para></listitem>
767</itemizedlist>
768<para>Finally, simulate an emergency restore.</para>
769<itemizedlist>
770<listitem>
771<para>Boot from media.</para>
772</listitem>
773<listitem><para>Select 'Interactive Mode' at boot-time. (Type
774 'interactive' and hit &lt;Enter&gt;.)</para></listitem>
775<listitem><para>Hit OK when shown the mountlist. Say 'yes' when asked if
776 you accept the mountlist.</para></listitem>
777<listitem><para>Select files to restore, e.g. /usr/local/man and
778 /usr/local/bin. Hit OK.</para></listitem>
779<listitem><para>Restore files to /tmp or /root/RESTORED or something
780 similar.</para></listitem>
781<listitem><para>When mondorestore terminates, please reboot and compare
782 the restored files to the originals.</para></listitem>
783</itemizedlist>
784<para>FYI, the subroutines to repartition and reformat your drives
785are very stable. If you are a RAID or LVM user, you
786might&nbsp;encounter some difficulties when wiping and restoring
787from scratch because of the sheer range of filesystem layouts and
788the impossibility of testing Mondo on every single one. If you have
789trouble, just drop to the command-line and partition/format
790manually. Then, call mondorestore, select Interactive Mode, and say
791'no' when asked if you want Mondo to partition or format your
792drives for you.</para>
793<para>You see, even if you have trouble, you still have two hands
794and most of the tools you need - lvchange, pvcreate, fdisk, mkraid,
795etc. - to do it manually. After you have prepped and formatted your
796drives manually (if you have to), just run mondorestore again and
797say 'no' when asked if you want to prep or format your drives. What
798could be easier?</para>
799</sect1>
800
801<sect1 id="overview-winbackup">
802<title>Windows Backup</title>
803<para>Backing up windows partitions.</para>
804<sect2 id="overview-winbackup-win95"><title>Windows ME/95/98</title>
805<para>Verify that the partition is listed in /etc/fstab and is
806mounted (e.g. /dev/hda1). Mondo will take care of everything else.
807The files will be archived just like all other files in the live
808file system. At restore-time, Mondo will take care of the boot
809sector of /dev/hda1 prior to the restore.</para>
810<para>Note: if Windows ME/95/98 is not located on /dev/hda1 or
811/dev/sda1, then Mondo will not take care of the boot sector of
812/dev/hda1. The user will have to boot from a DOS floppy and run SYS
813C: to correct the Windows boot sector.</para>
814</sect2>
815<sect2 id="overview-winbackup-winnt"><title>Windows NT4/2K/XP</title>
816<para>Windows NT4/2K/XP typically use the NTFS file system, not
817VFAT.. The user should use '-x /dev/hda1' (or whichever device the
818Windows partition resides). Mondo will treat the partition as a
819biggiefile. Mondo will also add an entry to the mountlist to
820reflect the size and type of the partition. The user may not edit
821that partition's size at restore-time (for obvious reasons).</para>
822<para>Please bear in mind that Mondo was written for Linux users.
823If Mondo does not backup or restore your Windows system well, you
824might want to consider reporting it to the &ML;
825</para>
826</sect2>
827</sect1>
828
829<sect1 id="overview-history">
830<title>Mondo Rescue and Mindi Linux
831History</title>
832<para>Mondo Rescue was created in December 1999 by Hugo Rabson as a utility to
833clone Linux/Windows installations. Norton Ghost would not do the
834job, and his boss wanted to jump on the Linux bandwagon. So, he wrote
835a few scripts and shoehorned them into the latest Linux-Mandrake
836CD. Since that time, Mondo grew into a disaster recovery suite for
837Linux and Windows. Mondo forced him to learn about the kernel, its
838initrd initial ramdisk, modules, library dependencies, disk
839partitioning, and the myriad differences between the Top 10 Linux
840distributions.</para>
841<para>The first formal release was made on February 18th, 2000.
842Mondo is currently one of the top five Linux backup/restore
843programs. Mondo has been compared favorably to ArcServe, Arkeia and
844BRU. Although Mondo lacks the more advanced, enterprise-level
845features of ArcServe and Arkeia, for workstations and small- to
846medium-size servers it is ideal because it is small, fast,
847efficient, stable, comes with source code, and is being actively
848developed and supported.</para>
849<para>
850 Since November 2005, Hugo Rabson has tranfered the maintenance
851 of the Mondo Rescue suite to Andree Leidenfrost and Bruno Cornec,
852 both previous developers and packagers of the tool since nearly
853 the begining.
854</para>
855</sect1>
856
857<sect1 id="overview-sysreq">
858<title>System Requirements</title>
859<sect2 id="overview-sysrq-hwreq">
860<title>Hardware Requirements</title>
861
862<para>Your computer must have:</para>
863<itemizedlist>
864<listitem>
865 <para>Intel(R)-compatible CPU (ia32, x86_64/amd64 or ia64)</para>
866</listitem>
867<listitem>
868<para>64MB of RAM (128MB recommended)</para>
869</listitem>
870<listitem>
871<para>800MB of hard disk space free</para>
872</listitem>
873<listitem>
874<para>CD writer, tape streamer, NFS share or some way to backup the
875backups :)</para>
876</listitem>
877</itemizedlist>
878<para>It is recommended that your computer have very good airflow.
879The backup with Mondo Rescue and Mindi Linux will utilize your CPU,
880CD drive and fixed disk(s) like very few other applications. With a
881few hours of system backup activity, computers without sufficient
882airflow may show symptoms such as not burning full CD discs. The
883solution is a $20 or less additional fan at your local electronics
884discount store.</para>
885</sect2>
886
887<sect2 id="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">
888<title>Kernel Requirements</title>
889
890<para>Your kernel must have:</para>
891<itemizedlist>
892<listitem>
893<para>stable loopfs support, which means it really needs to be
8942.2.19 or 2.4.7 (or later)</para>
895</listitem>
896<listitem>
897<para>CD-ROM device support</para>
898</listitem>
899<listitem>
900<para>ISO9660 file system support</para>
901</listitem>
902<listitem>
903<para>initrd ramdisk support (built-in)</para>
904</listitem>
905<listitem>
906<para>Virtual memory file system support (built-in)</para>
907</listitem>
908<listitem>
909<para>ext2 file system support (built-in)</para>
910</listitem>
911<listitem>
912<para>Support for the backup media (Tape, CD-RW, NFS, Hard
913disk)</para>
914</listitem>
915<listitem>
916<para>If the backup media is CD-RW then you need SCSI emulation
917also</para>
918<para>vfat support in the active kernel - mindi needs this when creating
919syslinux boot media</para>
920</listitem>
921</itemizedlist>
922<para>Please note that the stock kernels of Red Hat/RHEL/Fedora,
923 Mandrake/Mandriva, SuSE/SLES/OpenSuSE, Debian and Slackware
924 all meet Mondo's requirements. If your kernel does not meet Mondo's
925 requirements then there is something wrong with it. Mondo's demands
926 are not unreasonable.</para>
927<para>Mondo (specifically Mindi) does not require any specific
928module. It does require that your kernel support the initrd
929initial ramdisk facility. Typically this is supported by the Linux
930kernel. Modules used are needed to support the CD,
931hard disks, etc. If the support is modular, then the modules will
932be incorporated in a boot disk by Mindi. If the support is built-in
933(static), then it will be available at boot-time by default.</para>
934</sect2>
935<sect2 id="overview-sysrq-swreq">
936<title>Software Requirements</title>
937<para>See Mondo's <ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/downloads.shtml">Download
938page</ulink> for details.</para>
939<para>Mondo requires afio, bzip2, cdrtools/cdrecord/growisofs (may be part of the dvd+rw-tools package), ncurses, newt,
940isolinux/syslinux, lzo (optional), lzop (optional), mkisofs, slang,
941and a few other packages.</para>
942<para>Good Linux distributions provide all these packages. If yours
943does not then please go to the aforementioned Download page or surf
944the Net, preferably the website of the distribution you are
945using.</para>
946<para>Mondo's expectations are not unreasonable, either of your
947Linux distribution or of your kernel. However, if your distribution
948fails to meet its expectations and you cannot find out how to
949resolve them, please feel free to e-mail the &ML;
950</para>
951</sect2>
952</sect1>
953</chapter>
954
955<chapter id="installation">
956<title>Installation</title>
957
958<sect1 id="installation-mindi">
959<title>Mindi Installation</title>
960<para>If you are installing from a tarball then copy it to wherever
961you have enough space, for example /tmp and type:</para>
962<para></para>
963<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
964<row>
965<entry>
966
967 bash# cd /tmp
968</entry>
969</row>
970<row>
971<entry>
972 bash# tar -zxvf mindi-1.x.tgz
973 </entry>
974</row>
975<row>
976<entry>
977bash# cd mindi-1.x
978</entry>
979</row>
980<row>
981<entry>
982 bash# ./install.sh
983
984</entry>
985</row>
986</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
987
988<para>This installs mindi additional files into /usr/local/lib/mindi and
989the program into /usr/local/sbin</para>
990<para>Or, if you are installing from an RPM/deb then copy it to
991wherever you have enough space, for example /tmp and type:</para>
992<para></para>
993<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
994<row>
995<entry>
996
997bash# rpm -Uvh /tmp/mindi-1.x-x.i386.rpm
998</entry>
999</row>
1000<row>
1001<entry>
1002
1003or
1004</entry>
1005</row>
1006<row>
1007<entry>
1008
1009bash# dpkg -i /tmp/mindi-1.x-x.deb
1010
1011</entry>
1012</row>
1013</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1014
1015<para>This installs mindi additional files into /usr/lib/mindi and
1016the program into /usr/sbin.
1017</para>
1018</sect1>
1019
1020<sect1 id="installation-mondo">
1021<title>Mondo Installation</title>
1022<para>If you are installing from a tarball then copy it to wherever
1023you have enough space, for example /tmp and type:</para>
1024<para></para>
1025<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1026<row>
1027<entry>
1028
1029 bash# cd /tmp
1030</entry>
1031</row>
1032<row>
1033<entry>
1034 bash# tar -zxvf mondo-2.xx.tgz
1035 </entry>
1036</row>
1037<row>
1038<entry>
1039bash# cd mondo-2.xx
1040 </entry>
1041</row>
1042<row>
1043<entry>
1044 bash# ./configure
1045 </entry>
1046</row>
1047<row>
1048<entry>
1049bash# make &amp;&amp; make install
1050
1051</entry>
1052</row>
1053</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1054
1055<para>This installs mondo into /usr/local/lib/mondo and installs
1056the programs into /usr/local/sbin</para>
1057<para>Or, if you are installing from an RPM/deb then copy it to copy it
1058to wherever you have enough space, for example /tmp and
1059type:</para>
1060<para></para>
1061<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1062<row>
1063<entry>
1064
1065bash# rpm -Uvh /tmp/mondo-2.x-x.i386.rpm
1066</entry>
1067</row>
1068<row>
1069<entry>
1070
1071or
1072</entry>
1073</row>
1074<row>
1075<entry>
1076
1077bash# dpkg -i /tmp/mondo-2.x-x.deb
1078
1079</entry>
1080</row>
1081</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1082
1083<para>This installs mondo into /usr/lib/mondo and installs
1084the programs into /usr/sbin</para>
1085</sect1>
1086
1087<sect1 id=rpm-verif>
1088 <title>RPM verifications</title>
1089 <para>For RPM based distributions (Fedora, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, ...), you may want to do this post-install in order to check the validity of your installation:</para>
1090<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1091<row>
1092 <entry>
1093 bash# rpm -Va mindi mondo
1094 </entry>
1095</row>
1096</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1097<para>
1098 This gives some truly obtuse output. Basically it will list all files that do NOT pass the verify tests (done on size, MD5 signature, etc). Please read rpm man page to discover the meaning of the output.
1099 </para>
1100</sect1>
1101</chapter>
1102
1103<chapter id="test">
1104<title>Tests</title>
1105
1106<sect1 id="test-mindi">
1107<title>Testing Mindi</title>
1108
1109<para>Mindi is a vital part of the backup procedure. If you have
1110used Mondo before or if you are in a hurry, skip steps 6.2 and 6.3;
1111go straight to QuickStart.</para>
1112<para>However, if you have time or if you have been having trouble
1113getting Mondo to work, I would recommend trying out Mindi directly
1114(rather than via Mondo) to see if it can produce a bootable CD on
1115your system.</para>
1116<para>Make sure you are root while doing this, otherwise mindi will
1117fail, now do this.</para>
1118<para>If you have any problems, please:-</para>
1119<itemizedlist>
1120<listitem>
1121<para>less /var/log/mindi.log</para>
1122</listitem>
1123<listitem><para>feel free to edit mindi (it's a shell script, btw) to try
1124 to fix the problem yourself</para></listitem>
1125<listitem><para>contact the &ML; if you get stuck.</para></listitem>
1126</itemizedlist>
1127<para>Type:-</para>
1128<para></para>
1129<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1130<row>
1131<entry>
1132
1133bash# mindi
1134
1135</entry>
1136</row>
1137</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1138
1139<para>Example screen output, selecting to use your own kernel, to
1140create boot disks, and to create a bootable CD image:</para>
1141<para></para>
1142<screen>
1143
1144# mindi
1145Mindi Linux mini-distro generator v1.09-r762
1146
1147Latest Mindi is available from http://www.mondorescueg
1148
1149------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1150Do you want to use your own kernel to build the boot disk (y/n) ?y
1151Would you like to use LILO (instead of syslinux)
1152for your boot media (y/n) ?n
1153Analyzing dependency requirements Done.
1154Making complete dependency list Done.
1155Analyzing your keyboard's configuration.
1156
1157Adding the following keyboard mapping tables: us-latin1 Done.
1158Assembling dependency files................................................................... Done.
1159The files have been subdivided into 5 directories. Your mountlist will look like this:-
1160 Finding all volume groups
1161 No volume groups found
1162 No volume groups found
1163 No volume groups found
1164 No volume groups found
1165 DEVICE MOUNTPOINT FORMAT SIZE (MB)
1166 /dev/hda1 / ext3 399
1167 /dev/hda9 /home ext3 48478
1168 /dev/hda6 /usr ext3 4999
1169 /dev/hda7 /var ext3 1000
1170 /dev/hda5 swap swap 349
1171 /dev/hda8 swap swap 2003
1172 Finding all volume groups
1173 No volume groups found
1174 No volume groups found
1175 No volume groups found
1176 No volume groups found
1177Tarring and zipping the groups.................. Done.
1178Creating data disk #1...#2...#3...#4...#5... Done.
1179Making 1722KB boot disk...........................1440+0 enregistrements lus.
11801440+0 enregistrements écrits.
1181mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
1182Failed to copy /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-15mdk-i686-up-4GB to ramdisk
1183
1184Making 2880KB boot disk...........................mkfs.vfat 2.10 (22 Sep 2003)
1185... 2880 KB boot disks were created OK Done.
1186In the directory '/var/cache/mindi' you will find the images:-
1187 mindi-data-1.img mindi-data-2.img mindi-data-3.img mindi-data-4.img mindi-data-5.img mindi-root.1440.img
1188Shall I make a bootable CD image? (y/n) y
1189NB: Mindi's bootable CD always uses isolinux.
1190
1191For a bootable CD w/LILO, please use Mondo.
1192
1193Finished.
1194
1195Boot and data disk images were created.
1196
1197#
1198
1199</screen>
1200
1201<para>If your kernel is too large (more than about 900KB) then you
1202cannot make boot media, although you can still make a bootable
1203CD image. The easiest way to test Mindi in either case is to say
1204'n' to its first question and 'y' to its second, then use the
1205separate application cdrecord or wodim to make a bootable CD-R or
1206CD-RW.</para>
1207<para>Use the cdrecord or wodim application to write the CD image:</para>
1208<para></para>
1209<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1210<row>
1211<entry>
1212 bash# cd /var/cache/mindi
1213</entry>
1214</row>
1215<row>
1216 <entry>
1217 bash# cdrecord -scanbus
1218</entry>
1219</row>
1220<row>
1221 <entry>
1222 bash# wodim --devices
1223</entry>
1224</row>
1225</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1226
1227<para>The output of the above call will tell you your
1228CD writer's node. It is usually '0,0,0'. Choose one of the
1229following calls to write the CD, depending on whether the disk in
1230the drive is a CD-R or a CD-RW. Please replace 'x,x,x' with your
1231writer's node. For further information, type 'man cdrecord" from a
1232Linux command line.</para>
1233<para>If writing to a CD-RW Drive/Disc:</para>
1234<para></para>
1235<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1236<row>
1237<entry>
1238bash# cdrecord -v blank=fast dev=x,x,x speed=4 mindi.iso (for CD-RW)
1239</entry>
1240</row>
1241<row>
1242<entry>
1243 bash# wodim -v blank=fast dev=/dev/xxx speed=4 mindi.iso (for CD-RW)
1244</entry>
1245</row>
1246</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1247
1248<para>If writing to a CD-R Drive/Disc:</para>
1249<para></para>
1250<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1251<row>
1252<entry>
1253bash# cdrecord -v dev=x,x,x speed=4 mindi.iso (for CD-R)
1254</entry>
1255</row>
1256<row>
1257<entry>
1258 bash# wodim -v dev=/dev/xxx speed=4 mindi.iso (for CD-R)
1259</entry>
1260</row>
1261</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1262</sect1>
1263
1264<!--
1265<sect1 id="test-mondo">
1266<title>Testing Mondo</title>
1267</sect1>
1268-->
1269</chapter>
1270
1271<chapter id="backup">
1272<title>Backup</title>
1273
1274<sect1 id="backup-recommandations">
1275<title>Recommendations</title>
1276<itemizedlist>
1277<listitem>
1278<para>Shut down all possible applications (this minimizes any
1279 compare differences following the backup). Especially shutdown
1280 properly any running database on your system, as the recovery
1281 may lead to corrupted data. Or if applicable, boot to single user mode.</para>
1282</listitem>
1283<listitem>
1284<para>Type:</para>
1285</listitem>
1286</itemizedlist>
1287<para></para>
1288<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1289<row>
1290<entry>
1291
1292bash# mondoarchive
1293
1294</entry>
1295</row>
1296</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1297
1298<para>For most users, that should be enough. :-) Mondoarchive will
1299usually autodetect your hardware and configure it for you.</para>
1300<para>If you are a power user (or you like to control every detail
1301of how Mondo runs) then you may want to look at the command-line
1302switches. For example:-</para>
1303<para></para>
1304<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1305<row>
1306<entry>
1307
1308bash# mondoarchive -Ow9 -gF -I /home
1309
1310</entry>
1311</row>
1312</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1313
1314<para>cdrecord or wodim will tell you where your CD recorder lives, in SCSI
1315terms, which looks like '0,0,0'. The previous call to mondoarchive tells
1316Mondo to backup everything to a 4x CD-RW drive that has
1317a CD-RW disk in it. (Use -Oc instead of -Ow if you are using
1318CD-R.)</para>
1319<para>Please put the first CD-R(W) in the drive now. You will be
1320prompted to insert CD #2 but you will not be prompted to insert the
1321first disk. However, if you forget, do not worry: if Mondo fails to
1322write the first (or any) disk, it will offer to retry, abort or
1323fail.</para>
1324<para>Find the speed/compression
1325compromise that best suits your needs. Here maximum (-9) compression level is used.</para>
1326<para>If you are using cron then please consult the chapter that Conor Daly has dedicated to that <link linkend="backup-cron">topic</link>
1327</para>
1328</sect1>
1329
1330<sect1 id="backup-cmd">
1331<title>Backup Commands and Options</title>
1332
1333<para>Backup Command:</para>
1334<para></para>
1335<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1336<row>
1337<entry>
1338
1339mondoarchive &lt;-option1&gt; &lt;-option2&gt; ... &lt;-optionN&gt;
1340
1341</entry>
1342</row>
1343</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1344
1345<para>E.g.,</para>
1346<para></para>
1347<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1348<row>
1349<entry>
1350
1351bash# mondoarchive -E "/mnt/dos /mnt/cdrom" -9 -Oc 8
1352
1353</entry>
1354</row>
1355</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1356
1357<para>Would create backup CD to a CD-R disc at the highest
1358compression level, writing at speed 8 and ignoring the /mnt/dos and
1359/mnt/cdrom directories.</para>
1360<para>To see a detailed list of switches and their meaning, see the
1361<ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/mondoarchive.8.html">HTML
1362man page</ulink> on the website or type 'man mondoarchive' at the
1363console.</para>
1364<sect2 id="backup-cmd-cdr">
1365<title>Standard Example With CD-R</title>
1366<para></para>
1367<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1368<row>
1369<entry>
1370
1371bash# mondoarchive -Oc 2 -g
1372
1373</entry>
1374</row>
1375</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1376
1377<para>Replace '2' in '-Oc 2' with the writer's speed. If
1378mondoarchive cannot find your CD-R then please add '-d 0,0,0' (or
1379whatever your CD writer's SCSI node is; usually, it is 0,0,0) to
1380the call.</para>
1381<para>Please insert the first disk in the writer while the PC is
1382chugging away. If Mondo needs additional CD-R(W) then it will ask
1383for them.</para>
1384</sect2>
1385<sect2 id="backup-cmd-cdrw">
1386<title>Standard Example With CD-RW</title>
1387<para></para>
1388<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1389<row>
1390<entry>
1391
1392bash# mondoarchive -Ow 2 -g
1393
1394</entry>
1395</row>
1396</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1397
1398<para>Replace '2' in '-Ow 2' with the writer's speed.</para>
1399</sect2>
1400<sect2 id="backup-cmd-tape">
1401 <title>Standard Example With Tape</title>
1402<para></para>
1403<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1404<row>
1405<entry>
1406
1407bash# mondoarchive -Ot -d /dev/st0 -g
1408
1409</entry>
1410</row>
1411</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1412
1413</sect2>
1414<sect2 id="backup-cmd-failsafe">
1415 <title>Standard Example With Failsafe kernel</title>
1416<para></para>
1417<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1418<row>
1419<entry>
1420
1421bash# mondoarchive -k FAILSAFE -Ow 2
1422
1423</entry>
1424</row>
1425</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1426
1427<para>If you have problems during the restore phase, due to your kernel
1428 (which may be the case on some distributions), you may want to explore the Failsafe
1429 approach, In order for this option to work you'll have to get
1430 the mindi-kernel tarball or package for your distribution.</para>
1431</sect2>
1432<sect2 id="backup-cmd-network">
1433 <title>Standard Example With Network Backup</title>
1434<para></para>
1435<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1436<row>
1437<entry>
1438
1439 bash# mount nfs://192.168.1.3:/home/nfs -t nfs /mnt/nfs
1440</entry>
1441</row>
1442<row>
1443 <entry>
1444 bash# mondoarchive -OVn nfs://192.168.1.3:/home/nfs -g -s 200m
1445</entry>
1446</row>
1447<row>
1448 <entry>
1449 bash# umount /mnt/nfs
1450
1451</entry>
1452</row>
1453</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1454
1455<para>The resultant ISO's can be burned to CD's if you want (which
1456isn't a good idea unless you're a Mondo expert because they'll try
1457to restore over a network by default, which is silly because the
1458archives are on the CD's). Or, you can boot from the Mindi media
1459(or mondorescue.iso) and hit ENTER a few times to restore.</para>
1460<para>Those ISO images can also be used for a PXE restore. For this
1461 to work, please refer to the file README.pxe provided with
1462 your mindi package.
1463</para>
1464</sect2>
1465</sect1>
1466</chapter>
1467
1468<chapter id="backup-cron">
1469<title>HOWTO run mondo interactively using cron</title>
1470
1471<sect1 id="backup-cron-overview">
1472<title>Overview</title>
1473
1474<para>
1475 Mondoarchive is designed to run interactively (at least where
1476 media changes are necessary). Cron does not allow user interaction
1477 with a job. This section addresses the problem by using screen as a
1478 wrapper for mondo.
1479</para>
1480<para>
1481 This section is Copyright 2003 Conor Daly.
1482</para>
1483</sect1>
1484<sect1 id="backup-cron-intro">
1485 <title>Introduction</title>
1486
1487<para>
1488Mondoarchive is designed to run interactively. That's not strictly
1489 true, if you run mondoarchive without the '-g' switch, it will just
1490 run. However, there is a problem where media changes are necessary.
1491 The user must change the media and tell mondoarchive that the change
1492 has been done. The problem lies in the fact that cron does not allow
1493 user interaction with a job. If you schedule a mondoarchive job via
1494 cron, you better be sure it needs only one media. In practical terms,
1495 this means using tapes or ISOs (if CD-R(W) is your backup medium).
1496 However, for tape users, there's always the possibility that the
1497 backup will overflow the tape while for CD-R(W) users, there is the
1498 added hassle of burning the ISOs in the morning. If your CD_R(W)
1499 backup routinely occupies more than one media, this is not for you
1500 (use the ISO option and burn the CDs in the morning). This HOWTO
1501 addresses the problem by using screen as a wrapper for mondo.
1502</para>
1503</sect1>
1504<sect1 id="backup-cron-who">
1505 <title>Who should read this?</title>
1506<sect2><title>Insurance</title>
1507<para>
1508Mondo users who wish to automate the backup and whose backups
1509 routinely occupy close to one media are the best audience. If you
1510 backup to tape, the occasion will arise when the backup will overflow
1511 your tape. In this instance, mondoarchive will ask for another tape.
1512 If you're using cron to start the backup, you won't be able to tell
1513 mondo that the new tape is mounted and the backup will fail. If you
1514 backup to CD-R(W), the same situation will arise but sooner.
1515 </para>
1516 </sect2>
1517 <sect2><title>Efficiency</title>
1518<para>
1519If your backup already occupies two media, this method will allow
1520 as much of the backup as possible to proceed during quiet periods.
1521 Time the backup to start with enough time to complete the first media
1522 shortly before the operator arrives for work. The next media can
1523 be mounted and the backup completed asap and minimises the time for
1524 which users are inconvenienced by the backup (eg. database locked...).
1525 </para>
1526 </sect2>
1527 </sect1>
1528 <sect1 id="backup-cron-problem">
1529 <title>The Problem</title>
1530<sect2><title>Cron's environment</title>
1531<para>
1532When a user submits a job with cron, their environment is not
1533 preserved. This is reasonable since cron jobs are typically ongoing
1534 and may be adversely affected if the user's environment changes subsequent
1535 to the cron submission. Thus, a cron job should call a script that
1536 set's up the correct environment before starting the user's desired
1537 program. The 'at' command does this nicely.
1538 </para>
1539 </sect2>
1540 <sect2><title>Interactivity</title>
1541<para>
1542When a job is started with cron, it runs as a background process.
1543 No interaction with the program is possible (unless it is capable
1544 of interacting via a FIFO or some such) except termination via its
1545 pid. The only program that I know of that allows such interaction
1546 and serves as a wrapper for other processes is 'screen'
1547 </para>
1548 </sect2>
1549 <sect2><title>Screen</title>
1550<para>
1551There's one little problem with screen though. It expects to
1552 attach to a terminal when it first starts. This won't happen under
1553 cron so screen will fail. Fortunately, screen comes with a "start
1554 detached" (-d) option.
1555 </para>
1556 </sect2>
1557 </sect1>
1558 <sect1 id="backup-cron-solution">
1559 <title>The Solution</title>
1560<sect2><title>Briefly</title>
1561<para>
1562<itemizedlist>
1563<listitem>
1564 <para>Use 'at' to run your usual mondoarchive command</para>
1565</listitem>
1566<listitem>
1567 <para>Grab the script generated by 'at' and make a copy of it</para>
1568 </listitem>
1569<listitem>
1570 <para>Edit that script to use 'screen -m -d &lt;your mondoarchive command&gt;'</para>
1571 </listitem>
1572<listitem>
1573 <para>Run that script from your crontab</para>
1574 </listitem>
1575<listitem>
1576 <para>Use 'screen -r' to attach to the mondo screen to change CDs</para>
1577 </listitem>
1578<listitem>
1579 <para>Use '&lt;CTRL&gt;-a d' to detach the screen again</para>
1580</listitem>
1581</itemizedlist>
1582</para>
1583</sect2>
1584<sect2><title>In Detail</title>
1585 <sect3><title>at</title>
1586<para>
1587Use the 'at' command to submit your usual mondoarchive command.
1588My mondoarchive command is:
1589</para>
1590<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1591<row>
1592<entry>
1593
1594 # mondoarchive -D -Ow 10 -S /home/mondo/ -T /home/mondo/ -g \
1595 -E "\"/home/cdaly/GIS/W2K /home/mondo/\"" -9
1596
1597</entry>
1598</row>
1599</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1600<para>
1601 To submit the mondoarchive command with 'at' do:
1602</para>
1603<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1604<row>
1605<entry>
1606
1607 # at now + 5 min
1608mondoarchive -D -Ow 10 -S /home/mondo/ -T /home/mondo/ -g \
1609-E "\"/home/cdaly/GIS/W2K /home/mondo/\"" -9
1610&lt;CTRL&gt;-d
1611</entry>
1612</row>
1613</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1614<para>
1615
1616This generates a script in /var/spool/at/ which sets up your
1617 environment and runs your command. Grab this script to become your
1618 cron job.
1619 </para>
1620 </sect3>
1621 <sect3><title>Grab the 'at' script</title>
1622<para>
1623 Make a copy of the script generated by the 'at' command to use
1624 as the basis for your cron job.
1625 </para>
1626<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1627<row>
1628<entry>
1629
1630grep mondo /var/spool/at/*
1631</entry>
1632</row>
1633<row>
1634 <entry>
1635cp /var/spool/at/&lt;file-from-grep&gt; /root/mondo-cronscript
1636</entry>
1637</row>
1638</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1639<para>
1640
1641 You'll need to edit this.
1642</para>
1643 </sect3>
1644<sect3><title>Edit mondo-cronscript</title>
1645<para>
1646To use screen, you'll need to edit the cronscript and add the
1647 screen command. My mondo-cronscript looks like:
1648</para>
1649<screen>
1650
1651#!/bin/sh
1652# atrun uid=0 gid=0
1653# mail cdaly 0 umask 22
1654PWD=/root; export PWD
1655XAUTHORITY=/root/.xauthyOrD4f; export XAUTHORITY
1656HOSTNAME=bofh.irmet.ie; export HOSTNAME
1657PVM_RSH=/usr/bin/rsh; export PVM_RSH
1658QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt-2.3.1; export QTDIR
1659LESSOPEN=\|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh\ %s; export LESSOPEN
1660XPVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3/xpvm; export XPVM_ROOT
1661KDEDIR=/usr; export KDEDIR
1662USER=root; export USER
1663LS_COLORS=no=00:fi=00:di=01\;34:ln=01\;36:pi=40\;33:so=01\;35:bd=40\;33\;01:cd=40\;33\;01:or=01\;05\;37\;41:mi=01\;05\;37\;41:ex=01\;32:\*.cmd=01\;32:\*.exe=01\;32:\*.com=01\;32:\*.btm=01\;32:\*.bat=01\;32:\*.sh=01\;32:\*.csh=01\;32:\*.tar=01\;31:\*.tgz=01\;31:\*.arj=01\;31:\*.taz=01\;31:\*.lzh=01\;31:\*.zip=01\;31:\*.z=01\;31:\*.Z=01\;31:\*.gz=01\;31:\*.bz2=01\;31:\*.bz=01\;31:\*.tz=01\;31:\*.rpm=01\;31:\*.cpio=01\;31:\*.jpg=01\;35:\*.gif=01\;35:\*.bmp=01\;35:\*.xbm=01\;35:\*.xpm=01\;35:\*.png=01\;35:\*.tif=01\;35:; export LS_COLORS
1664MACHTYPE=i386-redhat-linux-gnu; export MACHTYPE
1665MAIL=/var/spool/mail/root; export MAIL
1666INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc; export INPUTRC
1667BASH_ENV=/root/.bashrc; export BASH_ENV
1668LANG=en_US; export LANG
1669LOGNAME=root; export LOGNAME
1670SHLVL=1; export SHLVL
1671II_SYSTEM=/usr/local/ingres; export II_SYSTEM
1672USERNAME=root; export USERNAME
1673HOSTTYPE=i386; export HOSTTYPE
1674OSTYPE=linux-gnu; export OSTYPE
1675HISTSIZE=1000; export HISTSIZE
1676LAMHELPFILE=/etc/lam/lam-helpfile; export LAMHELPFILE
1677PVM_ROOT=/usr/share/pvm3; export PVM_ROOT
1678HOME=/root; export HOME
1679SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass;
1680export SSH_ASKPASS
1681PATH=/usr/local/ingres/ingres/bin:/usr/local/ingres/ingres/utility:/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/root/bin; export PATH
1682cd /root || {
1683echo 'Execution directory inaccessible' >&2
1684exit 1
1685}
1686screen -m -d mondoarchive -D -Ow 10 -S /home/mondo/ \
1687-T /home/mondo/ -g -E "\"/home/cdaly/GIS/W2K /home/mondo/\"" -9
1688#done
1689
1690</screen>
1691<para>
1692 The crucial line is this one:
1693</para>
1694<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1695<row>
1696<entry>
1697 screen -m -d mondoarchive -D -Ow 10 -S /home/mondo/ -T /home/mondo/ -g -E "\"/home/cdaly/GIS/W2K /home/mondo/\"" -9
1698</entry>
1699</row>
1700</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1701<para>
1702This uses 'screen -m -d' to <quote>-m -d Start screen in "detached" mode. This creates a new session
1703 but doesn't attach to it. This is useful for system startup scripts.
1704 (From 'man screen')
1705</quote>
1706</para>
1707<para>
1708 When screen starts, it will be in the background and "detached".
1709</para>
1710</sect3>
1711<sect3><title>Run the thing with cron</title>
1712<para>
1713 To get the whole thing running, do:
1714</para>
1715<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1716<row>
1717<entry>
1718 crontab -e
1719 </entry>
1720</row>
1721</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1722<para>
1723and add the following lines:
1724</para>
1725<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1726<row>
1727<entry>
1728&num; run mondoarchive at 23:59 weekdays
1729</entry>
1730</row>
1731<row>
1732 <entry>
173359 23 * * 1-5 /root/mondo-cronscript
1734</entry>
1735</row>
1736</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1737<para>
1738 Your mondoarchive job will run at 23:59 monday-friday.
1739</para>
1740<para>
1741DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE TAPES!
1742</para>
1743</sect3>
1744<sect3><title>Getting at it...</title>
1745<para>
1746Once your cron job is running regularly, you'll want to get to
1747 it to change tapes and check status etc.
1748</para>
1749<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1750<row>
1751<entry>
1752screen -r
1753</entry>
1754</row>
1755</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1756<para>
1757attaches to the running screen where you can change CDs etc
1758</para>
1759<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1760<row>
1761<entry>
1762&lt;CTRL&gt;-a d
1763</entry>
1764</row>
1765</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1766<para>
1767detaches the running screen again.
1768</para>
1769</sect3>
1770<sect3><title>Caveat</title>
1771<para>
1772The script generated by 'at' is unique to the user/machine combination.
1773 You MUST regenerate it on each machine where it will be used. Using
1774 the one above will NOT work for you. MAKE YOUR OWN!
1775</para>
1776</sect3>
1777</sect2>
1778</sect1>
1779</chapter>
1780
1781<chapter id="compare">
1782<title>Compare</title>
1783<para>Before you trust your backup CD, make sure your BIOS can boot
1784CD (and that it is configured to do so).</para>
1785<itemizedlist>
1786<listitem>
1787<para>Boot from the first CD.</para>
1788</listitem>
1789<listitem>
1790<para>Type:</para>
1791</listitem>
1792</itemizedlist>
1793<para></para>
1794<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1795<row>
1796<entry>
1797
1798LILO: compare
1799
1800</entry>
1801</row>
1802</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1803
1804<para>Follow the on-screen instructions. This will compare your
1805backup against your original file system.</para>
1806<para>FYI, no bad archives have been created since May 2000. Having
1807said that, I would still encourage you to run Compare before
1808trusting the backups.</para>
1809<para>To view the file differences, look at the file
1810'/tmp/changed.txt'. Normal differences include logs and other
1811dynamic system files that changed during the time of the backup
1812process. If only a few files differ - e.g. files in /var, files
1813ending in '&amp;#732;', logs, temporary files, /etc/mtab,
1814/etc/adjtimex - then you know the archives are good. Your logs will
1815change over time, too. Bear in mind that a difference between the
1816backup and the live copy does not&nbsp;indicate a flaw in Mondo. It
1817indicates that you or your filesystem changed the files, so the
1818backup is no longer 100% up to date. However, that is inevitable,
1819as your filesystem changes from moment to moment (which is why you
1820back it up regularly).</para>
1821
1822</chapter>
1823
1824<chapter id="restore">
1825<title>Restore</title>
1826
1827<sect1 id="restore-overview">
1828<title>Overview</title>
1829
1830<para>I hope you don't have to restore from scratch very often.
1831It's nerve-wracking until you realize that Mondo's restore engine
1832is very reliable.
1833</para>
1834<para>If you find that you cannot make your PC boot from the CD,
1835take heart: the first backup media of each set contains disk
1836images to give you the same functionality as this media (minus the
1837archives, of course) on other boot media. Remember, your Mondo CD is a
1838fully functional CD-based mini-distribution as well as a recovery
1839CD.</para>
1840<para>You can choose from the following modes:</para>
1841
1842<variablelist>
1843<varlistentry><term>Interactive</term>
1844<listitem><para>Restore step-by-step, or restore a subset of the
1845archives. This is the method you should mainly use for your
1846recovery needs.</para>
1847</listitem></varlistentry>
1848<varlistentry><term>Nuke</term>
1849<listitem><para>Wipe your drives and restore everything,
1850automatically and unattended. Warning: This does exactly what is
1851says, so be careful using it.</para>
1852</listitem></varlistentry>
1853<varlistentry><term>Expert</term>
1854<listitem><para>Boot to a shell prompt. If you want to do anything
1855creative, you should boot into Expert Mode. It's called expert, I
1856think that says it all.</para>
1857</listitem>
1858</varlistentry>
1859</variablelist>
1860
1861<para>If the CD is not found during the initial restore CD boot
1862attempt, reboot the PC a second time prior to reporting failure.
1863Occasional timing errors and hardware/software/system conflicts do
1864occur.</para>
1865</sect1>
1866
1867<sect1 id="restore-tips">
1868<title>Tips and Tricks</title>
1869
1870<para>Ideally, restore your system to a spare hard drive to test
1871the integrity and reliability of your disks. To do that, either
1872edit your mountlist to make the devices point to your spare hard
1873drive, or swap your hard drive cables between boots.</para>
1874<para>At a bare minimum, compare your CD against your file system
1875before you decide whether to trust them.</para>
1876<para>To test Mondo's ability to handle your LILO or GRUB boot
1877loader and accompanying configuration file:</para>
1878<itemizedlist>
1879<listitem>
1880<para>Boot from the backup CD into Expert Mode</para>
1881</listitem>
1882<listitem>
1883<para>Type:</para>
1884</listitem>
1885</itemizedlist>
1886<para></para>
1887<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1888<row>
1889<entry>
1890
1891bash# mondorestore -Z mbr
1892
1893</entry>
1894</row>
1895</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1896
1897<itemizedlist>
1898<listitem>
1899<para>To fix any mess it made (not that it should) type:</para>
1900</listitem>
1901</itemizedlist>
1902<para></para>
1903<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
1904<row>
1905<entry>
1906 bash# mount-me
1907</entry>
1908</row>
1909<row>
1910<entry>
1911 bash# chroot /mnt/RESTORING
1912 </entry>
1913</row>
1914<row>
1915<entry>
1916 </entry>
1917</row>
1918<row>
1919<entry>
1920bash# lilo OR grub-install '(hd0)'
1921 </entry>
1922</row>
1923<row>
1924<entry>
1925bash# exit
1926</entry>
1927</row>
1928<row>
1929<entry>
1930 bash# unmount-me
1931
1932</entry>
1933</row>
1934</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
1935
1936<itemizedlist>
1937<listitem>
1938<para>If it did not work then please copy /tmp/mondorestore.log to
1939to your hard disk, USB key, ..., gzip it and e-mail it to the
1940&ML;.</para>
1941</listitem>
1942</itemizedlist>
1943
1944<sect2>
1945 <title>Barebones (Nuke) Restore</title>
1946<para>Imagine that your hard drives happen to be wiped,
1947deliberately or accidentally. Or, imagine that you want to clone
1948your existing operating system. In either case, you want to run in
1949Nuke Mode.</para>
1950<para>If you want to wipe everything and restore your whole system
1951from CD, please:</para>
1952<itemizedlist>
1953<listitem>
1954<para>Use the -H option when invoking mondoarchive</para>
1955</listitem>
1956<listitem>
1957<para>Boot from the first Mondo CD</para>
1958</listitem>
1959<listitem>
1960<para>Press RESTORE&lt;enter&gt;</para>
1961</listitem>
1962<listitem>
1963<para>Insert the subsequent CD when asked</para>
1964</listitem>
1965<listitem>
1966<para>Watch the screen for errors</para>
1967</listitem>
1968</itemizedlist>
1969<para>That's it. The restoration process for tape or NFS users is
1970similarly easy: just boot, answer the on-screen prompts, and
1971wait.</para>
1972<para>Now, should something go wrong, you will be able to examine
1973/tmp/mondorestore.log to see what happened. All is not lost. You
1974can fdisk and format the partitions yourself, using the tools that
1975come with the CD. You can then run mondorestore in Interactive Mode
1976and say 'no' when asked if you want Mondo to partition/format your
1977drives.</para>
1978<para>If you want to see exactly what Mondo is doing while it is
1979restoring, press &lt;Alt&gt;&lt;left cursor&gt; to view its
1980logfile, in a virtual console, scrolling past.</para>
1981</sect2>
1982<sect2>
1983<title>Interactive Restore</title>
1984<para>Interactive Mode is for people who have lost a subset of data
1985from their live file system, or perhaps who have lost some data
1986from their latest backup and want to restore a subset of data from
1987an earlier backup. If you want to restore only some files or if you
1988do not want to prep/format your drives, then you should boot into
1989Interactive Mode. The interactive mode will provide an 'Editing
1990mountlist screen' that allows you to setup a different disk
1991geometry.</para>
1992<para>To move up and down between partitions in the 'Editing
1993mountlist screen', use the Up and Down arrows. To move between the
1994main window and the buttons at the bottom, use the Left and Right
1995cursor keys. TAB shifts focus from one screen item to the other in
1996a haphazard fashion, owing to the complexities of the Newt
1997library.</para>
1998<para>If you want to restore selectively, just press &lt;enter&gt;
1999and follow the on-screen instructions. You will be asked to say
2000yes/no to a range of questions.</para>
2001<para>If you are planning to modify your partition table, you would
2002do well to read up on the partition layout and the use of fdisk, it
2003gives you some pointers on how to best lay out partitions.
2004You can find a good guide at
2005<ulink url="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/index.html">http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/index.html</ulink>
2006</para>
2007<para>If you want to restore a subset of the backup then:</para>
2008<itemizedlist>
2009<listitem>
2010<para>Boot from the CD</para>
2011</listitem>
2012<listitem>
2013<para>Type:</para>
2014</listitem>
2015</itemizedlist>
2016<para></para>
2017<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2018<row>
2019<entry>
2020
2021bash# interactive
2022
2023</entry>
2024</row>
2025</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2026
2027<itemizedlist>
2028<listitem>
2029<para>Then, after booting, answer the questions as follows:</para>
2030</listitem>
2031</itemizedlist>
2032<para></para>
2033<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2034<row>
2035<entry>
2036
2037 Do you want to partition your devices? no
2038 </entry>
2039</row>
2040<row>
2041<entry>
2042Do you want to format them? no
2043 </entry>
2044</row>
2045<row>
2046<entry>
2047Do you want to restore everything? no
2048 </entry>
2049</row>
2050<row>
2051<entry>
2052Do you want to restore something? yes
2053 </entry>
2054</row>
2055<row>
2056<entry>
2057Which path do you want to restore? /mydata [e.g.]
2058 </entry>
2059</row>
2060<row>
2061<entry>
2062Do you want to run LILO to setup your boot sectors? Yes
2063
2064</entry>
2065</row>
2066</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2067
2068</sect2>
2069
2070<sect2>
2071<title>Expert Restore</title>
2072<para>If you are planning to modify your partition table, you would
2073do well to read up on the partition layout and the use of fdisk, it
2074gives you some could pointers on how to best lay out partitions.
2075You can find good a guide at
2076<ulink url="http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/Partition/index.html">http://www.ibiblio.o
2077rg/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/Partition/index.html</ulink></para>
2078<para>To restore manually, please:</para>
2079<itemizedlist>
2080<listitem>
2081<para>Boot from the first CD, then type:</para>
2082</listitem>
2083</itemizedlist>
2084<para></para>
2085<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2086<row>
2087<entry>
2088
2089bash# expert
2090
2091</entry>
2092
2093</row>
2094</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2095
2096<itemizedlist>
2097<listitem>
2098<para>Then do whatever you like. :) You may type the following, of
2099course:</para>
2100</listitem>
2101</itemizedlist>
2102<para></para>
2103<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2104<row>
2105<entry>
2106
2107bash# mondorestore
2108
2109</entry>
2110</row>
2111</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2112</sect2>
2113
2114<sect2>
2115<title>Modified partitions - Restore to a different disk geometry</title>
2116<para>One of the nice things about Mondo is that it lets you wipe
2117your existing system and restore it in any layout you like (within
2118reason). You can move from non-RAID to RAID,install and utilize
2119additional drives, move from ext2 to ReiserFS, etc., all without
2120risking the loss of data.</para>
2121<para>If the user excluded a particular partition from backup and
2122specifically excluded it from the mountlist itself using -E then
2123Mondo will insert a small (32MB) partition at restore-time, in
2124order to avoid having to re-jig fstab, the partition table,
2125etc.</para>
2126<para>To do this:</para>
2127<itemizedlist>
2128<listitem>
2129<para>Boot into Expert Mode, then type:</para>
2130</listitem>
2131</itemizedlist>
2132<para></para>
2133<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2134<row>
2135<entry>
2136
2137bash# mondorestore
2138
2139</entry>
2140</row>
2141</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2142
2143<itemizedlist>
2144<listitem>
2145<para>(edit the mountlist using the on-screen editor)</para>
2146</listitem>
2147</itemizedlist>
2148<para>If you want to move from ext2 to ReiserFS, you can do it here
2149(so long as your kernel supports ReiserFS). Ditto for XFS, JFS or
2150ext3, ext4.</para>
2151<para>Mondorestore will try to modify your /etc/fstab to reflect
2152changes you have made to the mountlist. If you are not using LILO,
2153you can still create your own /mnt/RESTORING/etc/lilo.conf and run
2154lilo -r /mnt/RESTORING to configure your boot sectors and Master
2155Boot Record.</para>
2156<para>Mondo (technically, Mindi on behalf of Mondo) creates a file
2157called a mountlist. This can be found on the ramdisk at
2158/tmp/mountlist.txt; it looks something like this:</para>
2159<para></para>
2160<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2161<row>
2162<entry>
2163
2164 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat 4096000
2165</entry>
2166</row>
2167<row>
2168<entry>
2169 /dev/hda5 / reiserfs 6023000
2170</entry>
2171</row>
2172<row>
2173<entry>
2174 /dev/hda6 /tmp xfs 955000
2175</entry>
2176</row>
2177<row>
2178<entry>
2179 /dev/hda7 /usr ext3 4096000
2180
2181</entry>
2182</row>
2183</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2184
2185<para>It is fairly easy to understand the list. Each line refers to
2186a single device/partition. The line format is:</para>
2187<para></para>
2188<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2189<row>
2190<entry>
2191
2192&lt;device&gt; &lt;partition&gt; &lt;format&gt; &lt;Kilobytes&gt;
2193
2194</entry>
2195</row>
2196</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2197
2198<para>If you have added a hard drive and want to take advantage of
2199the additional space, you could amend the above mountlist to
2200read:</para>
2201<para></para>
2202<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2203<row>
2204<entry>
2205
2206 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat 6096000
2207</entry>
2208</row>
2209<row>
2210<entry>
2211 /dev/hda5 / reiserfs 9123000
2212</entry>
2213</row>
2214<row>
2215<entry>
2216 /dev/hda6 /tmp xfs 955000
2217</entry>
2218</row>
2219<row>
2220<entry>
2221 /dev/hdb1 /usr ext3 8192000
2222</entry>
2223</row>
2224<row>
2225<entry>
2226 /dev/hdb2 /home xfs 8192000
2227
2228</entry>
2229</row>
2230</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2231
2232<para>This assumes that your old hard drive is /dev/hda and the new
2233hard drive is /dev/hdb.</para>
2234<para>Or, if you want to add RAID support, create a new
2235/etc/raidtab on the ramdisk (which is beyond the scope of this
2236HOWTO) and then write a mountlist like this:</para>
2237<para></para>
2238<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2239<row>
2240<entry>
2241
2242 /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows vfat 6096000
2243</entry>
2244</row>
2245<row>
2246<entry>
2247 /dev/md0 / reiserfs 9123000
2248</entry>
2249</row>
2250<row>
2251<entry>
2252 /dev/md1 /tmp xfs 955000
2253</entry>
2254</row>
2255<row>
2256<entry>
2257 /dev/md2 /usr ext3 8192000
2258</entry>
2259</row>
2260<row>
2261<entry>
2262 /dev/md3 /home xfs 8192000
2263
2264</entry>
2265</row>
2266</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2267
2268<para>So long as your /etc/raidtab file is sane, Mondo can
2269automatically partition and format your disks for you, including
2270the RAID devices.</para>
2271<para>Once you have finished editing /tmp/mountlist.txt using
2272mondorestore's built-in editor then you may choose 'OK'. Please
2273note that this will not write anything to your hard disk. You will
2274only reformat or repartition your disks if you say 'Yes' when asked
2275if you want to do those things.</para>
2276</sect2>
2277
2278<sect2>
2279<title>Advanced</title>
2280<para>It is now possible to restore to a live filesystem using
2281Mondo. In other words, you do not have to boot your PC from your
2282media in order to restore files. Mondo was originally designed
2283for disaster recovery - situations in which you cannot boot your
2284PC. If you can boot your PC, it is not really a disaster, is it? :)
2285Well, if you have wiped out your priceless collection of "MTV's
2286Bjork Unplugged" MP3's, perhaps it is. Anyway, just type this as
2287root</para>
2288<para></para>
2289<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2290<row>
2291<entry>
2292
2293bash# mondorestore
2294
2295</entry>
2296</row>
2297</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2298
2299<para></para>
2300<informaltable><tgroup cols="2"><tbody>
2301<row>
2302<entry>
2303<ulink url="images/rest1.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2304<imagedata fileref="images/rest1-mini">
2305</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2306</ulink>
2307</entry>
2308<entry>
2309Choose your type of backup media. The live restoration process is
2310very similar to what you'll experience if you type mondorestore
2311with no parameters after booting from a Mondo media.
2312</entry>
2313</row>
2314<row>
2315<entry>
2316<ulink url="images/rest2.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2317<imagedata fileref="images/rest2-mini">
2318</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2319</ulink>
2320</entry>
2321<entry>
2322Hit 'OK' when you have inserted the tape/CD. If you generated a
2323tape backup, the tape itself should be enough. If you generated a
2324CD backup, the first CD should be enough. Otherwise, you may need
2325the boot media.
2326</entry>
2327</row>
2328<row>
2329<entry>
2330<ulink url="images/rest3.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2331<imagedata fileref="images/rest3-mini">
2332</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2333</ulink>
2334</entry>
2335<entry>
2336Flag the files and directories you wish to restore. Use the 'More'
2337and 'Less' buttons to open and close subdirectories.
2338</entry>
2339</row>
2340<row>
2341<entry>
2342<ulink url="images/rest4.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2343<imagedata fileref="images/rest4-mini">
2344</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2345</ulink>
2346</entry>
2347<entry>
2348Specify the location to restore the files to. In general, '/' is
2349appropriate. If you do not want to overwrite newer versions of the
2350files you are restoring then specify /tmp/BKP or similar as the
2351restore path.
2352</entry>
2353</row>
2354<row>
2355<entry>
2356<ulink url="images/rest5.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2357<imagedata fileref="images/rest5-mini">
2358</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2359</ulink>
2360</entry>
2361<entry>
2362Mondorestore will retrieve configuration information from the
2363media. (The sample screen is for tape users. CD users will see
2364something different.)
2365</entry>
2366</row>
2367<row>
2368<entry>
2369<ulink url="images/rest6.png"><inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
2370<imagedata fileref="images/rest6-mini">
2371</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>
2372</ulink>
2373</entry>
2374<entry>
2375Data will be restored to the hard disk - first the regular files,
2376then any big (32MB or greater) files in the restore set.
2377</entry>
2378</row>
2379</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2380
2381<para>I hope this manual was useful for you.</para>
2382</sect2>
2383</sect1>
2384
2385</chapter>
2386
2387<chapter id="faq">
2388<title>FAQ</title>
2389
2390<sect1 id="faq-overview">
2391<title>Overview</title>
2392<para>Are the errors from Mindi or Mondo? Look at
2393 /var/log/mondoarchive.log or /var/log/mindi.log (if run alone). Pipe
2394screen errors which relate to the creation of boot disk(s) and or
2395data disk(s) to a text file.</para>
2396<para>See the &WWW; for details. If you are going to e-mail
2397&ML; then
2398please attach that text file (zipped!) and give :</para>
2399<itemizedlist>
2400<listitem>
2401<para>Your kernel version (uname -a)</para>
2402</listitem>
2403<listitem>
2404 <para>Your Linux distro's name and version (/etc/distro-release)</para>
2405</listitem>
2406<listitem>
2407 <para>Whether your kernel supports initrd and loopfs; it should! (grep -E '^CONFIG_BLK_DEV_LOOP|^CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD' /usr/src/linux/.config </para>
2408</listitem>
2409<listitem>
2410<para>What sort of PC you are using, including hard disk configurations (results of dmidecode, lshw, fdisk -l are useful here)</para>
2411</listitem>
2412</itemizedlist>
2413<para>Mondo is freely available under the GPL and you are given it for no charge.
2414When you e-mail the &ML;, please bear that in mind.</para>
2415</sect1>
2416<sect1 id="faq-general">
2417<title>General Questions</title>
2418
2419<qandaset>
2420<qandaentry>
2421 <question><para>Q: What is "Mindi"?</para></question>
2422 <answer>
2423<para>A: Mindi, a.k.a. Mindi-Linux, makes a mini-distribution from
2424your kernel, modules, modules, tools and libraries. It can also
2425generate an El Torito 2.88/5.76MB boot disk image. Mondo uses Mindi to
2426create a mini-distro, then boots from it and runs on it.</para>
2427</answer>
2428</qandaentry>
2429<qandaentry>
2430 <question><para>Q: Why is it called "Mondo"?</para></question>
2431 <answer>
2432<para>A: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles described cool things as
2433'mondo'. Hugo Rabson wasn't sure what to call this project. 'Faust' was one
2434idea he had, partly as a dig at his former boss who practically owned
2435him because of his legal status at the time. In the end, he chose
2436something short and distinctive.</para>
2437</answer>
2438</qandaentry>
2439<qandaentry>
2440<question><para>Q: Mondo does not work on my system. It
2441 keels over and dies. What's wrong?</para></question>
2442<answer>
2443 <para>A: It works on Red Hat 7.x/8/9, RHEL 2.1/3/4, Mandrakelinux 8.x/9.x/10.x/200x, Fedora 4/5/6, Debian 3.x, most flavors
2444 of SuSE/SLES, some flavors of Slackware, etc.
2445The more distributions we support, the more moving targets we have to
2446hit. Please bear this in mind when e-mailing the list. :) If you
2447would like to help us by beta-testing Mondo (or Mindi) on your PC
2448then we would be very interested in working with you to work around
2449the eccentricities of your Linux distro. However, rest assured, 90%
2450of the bugs reported are actually symptoms of FooLinux X.Y's
2451unique way of doing things.</para>
2452<para>Please send a copy of <filename>/var/log/mondoarchive.log</filename> to the &ML;
2453along with a description of your distro, your kernel, etc.
2454Oh, and before sending it, please try to read it.</para>
2455</answer>
2456</qandaentry>
2457<qandaentry>
2458 <question><para>Q: What if the error is in Mindi?</para></question>
2459 <answer>
2460 <para>A: Please send a copy of <filename>/var/log/mindi.log</filename> to the &ML;
2461along with a description of your distro, your kernel, etc.
2462Oh, and before sending it, please read it as it is much easier to understand it.</para>
2463</answer>
2464</qandaentry>
2465<qandaentry>
2466 <question><para>Q: Can I trust Mondo?</para></question>
2467 <answer>
2468<para>A: Mondo has generated reliable archives since May 2000.
2469Lost data occured by using bad CD-R disks and not verifying their
2470contents. Some users have not tried booting from their CD until
2471crunch time. Remember to boot into Compare Mode to verify the
2472backup before you trust it. If Mondo did not work, you would not be
2473reading this. If it does not work for you, your kernel is usually
2474the culprit. Check <link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux Kernel
2475support</link> to see what your kernel should support. Please
2476e-mail the list if you need some help with this.</para>
2477</answer>
2478</qandaentry>
2479<qandaentry>
2480 <question><para>Q: How do I report a bug?</para></question>
2481 <answer>
2482 <para>A: E-mail the bug report (mondo.err.xxxxx.tgz) to the &ML;.
2483 Ok you've read it already but it's really important if you want help.
2484If you don't send a logfile then there isn't a lot that we can do for you, so
2485PLEASE include a logfile at the very least.</para>
2486</answer>
2487</qandaentry>
2488<qandaentry>
2489<question><para>Q: I think Mondo should (...insert
2490suggestion here...) and I have rewritten it accordingly. Would you
2491like to see my patch?</para></question>
2492<answer>
2493<para>A: Absolutely! :-) The best way for you to make Mondo do what
2494you want is to modify it and then send the patch. That way, we
2495can all benefit.</para>
2496</answer>
2497</qandaentry>
2498<qandaentry>
2499<question><para>Q: I think Mondo should (...insert
2500suggestion here...); will you incorporate this feature for me,
2501please?</para></question>
2502<answer>
2503<para>A: Please enter the suggestion in our feature system at &WWW;
2504</para>
2505</answer>
2506</qandaentry>
2507<qandaentry>
2508<question><para>Q: Mondo says, "XXX is missing," and
2509 then terminates. What's wrong?</para></question>
2510<answer>
2511<para>A: A good Linux distribution should contain XXX but the
2512designers, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to include that
2513particular tool. Check <ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/downloads.shtml#dependencies">Related
2514 Linux Packages</ulink> and install the missing package. If that
2515fails, contact the vendor/distributor/manufacturer/designer of your
2516distro.</para>
2517</answer>
2518</qandaentry>
2519<qandaentry>
2520<question><para>Q: Can Mondo handle multi-CD backups and
2521 restores?</para></question>
2522<answer>
2523<para>A: Yes, up to twenty CD per set. This 20-CD limit results
2524from laziness on mondorescue's part. I'll be removed in the future. However, if
2525your system occupies more than 20 CD, may it's time for another type of media ?
2526</para>
2527</answer>
2528</qandaentry>
2529<qandaentry>
2530<question><para>Q: Can Mondo handle Linux/Windows
2531 dual-boot systems?</para></question>
2532<answer>
2533<para>A: Yes. If your system currently boots into Linux or Windows
2534via LILO, you can backup and restore both OSes at the same time
2535using Mondo. If you are using NTFS then add the switch, '-x
2536&lt;device&gt;'.</para>
2537</answer>
2538</qandaentry>
2539<qandaentry>
2540<question><para>Q: Can Mondo backup Windows-only
2541 systems?</para></question>
2542<answer>
2543<para>A: Not at the moment.
2544</para>
2545</answer>
2546</qandaentry>
2547<qandaentry>
2548 <question><para>Q: Does Mondo support LVM?</para></question>
2549 <answer>
2550<para>A: Mondo supports LVM v1 and v2. Mondo backs up and restores your
2551existing setup but it does not make it easy for you to change your
2552LVM configuration, at the moment. You have to edit <filename>/tmp/i-want-my-lvm</filename> at boot-time
2553to do that.</para>
2554</answer>
2555</qandaentry>
2556<qandaentry>
2557<question><para>Q: What if I don't use LILO? What if I
2558 use GRUB?</para></question>
2559<answer>
2560<para>A: GRUB is supported by Mondo.</para>
2561</answer>
2562</qandaentry>
2563<qandaentry>
2564<question><para>Q: I get the error, 'Cannot find
2565 /tmp/dev.0' or 'Cannot mount device 0x0701'; what do I do?</para></question>
2566<answer>
2567 <para>A: Please free up <filename>/dev/loop0</filename> using 'losetup /dev/loop0 -d' to
2568unmount that loop device. If your OS will not let you do that,
2569contact your local support group or Linux vendor.</para>
2570</answer>
2571</qandaentry>
2572<qandaentry>
2573<question><para>Q: Can I create a Mondo CD and then use
2574 it to create an archive of any OS on any PC?</para></question>
2575<answer>
2576<para>A: Not yet. You can use Mondo to backup Linux or
2577Linux/Windows dual boot. One day, Mondo will let you backup
2578partitions it can't read or write, by treating each partition as
2579one long file to be backed up. This file will be chopped,
2580compressed and archived like any other big file.</para>
2581</answer>
2582</qandaentry>
2583<qandaentry>
2584<question><para>Q: Why do you insist on putting media
2585disk images on Mondo CD? They waste space and I never use them. The
2586CD works just fine, so why keep the media disk images?</para>
2587</question>
2588<answer>
2589<para>A: Because. It helped us in the past. If you
2590really, truly want them gone then please submit a patch to make
2591them optional.</para>
2592</answer>
2593</qandaentry>
2594<qandaentry>
2595<question><para>Q: Why doesn't the Mondo project have a
2596cool-looking animal logo?</para></question>
2597<answer>
2598<para>A: Excellent question! Please submit graphics of candidate
2599 animal logos!</para>
2600 </answer>
2601</qandaentry>
2602<qandaentry>
2603<question><para>Q: Is there a Mondo user 'Code of
2604 Conduct?</para></question>
2605<answer>
2606<para>A: Yes. Read the HOWTO. Submit patches. Recommend realistic
2607improvements. Be courteous to other users on the discussion list.
2608Do not whine.</para>
2609</answer>
2610</qandaentry>
2611</qandaset>
2612</sect1>
2613
2614<sect1 id="faq-booting">
2615<title>Booting and Kernel related Questions</title>
2616<qandaset>
2617<qandaentry>
2618<question><para>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
2619it says, "VFS: Unable to mount root fs." I am using an old Debian
2620distro. What do I do?</para></question>
2621<answer>
2622<para>A: Ask Debian's designers why they, unlike every other distro
2623I can find, have included cramfs and other 'goodies' with their
2624kernel. In the meantime, please use '-k FAILSAFE' in your command
2625line when calling Mondo.</para>
2626<para>A: From Sarge onwards, all stock Debian 2.6 kernels should work fine. If
2627you are still using stock Debian 2.4 kernels, FAILSAFE is the way to go.
2628Of course, if you have compiled your own kernel and experience problems,
2629FAILSAFE is the way to go as well, but this is not really
2630Debian-specific.</para>
2631</answer>
2632</qandaentry>
2633<qandaentry>
2634<question><para>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
2635it says, "Cannot mount root fs - kernel panic," or something
2636similar. What do I do?</para></question>
2637<answer>
2638<para>A: Recompile your kernel (or use '-k FAILSAFE'). Take a look
2639at <link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux Kernel support</link> to
2640see what your kernel must support.</para>
2641</answer>
2642</qandaentry>
2643<qandaentry>
2644<question><para>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
2645 it says, "UPGRADE YOUR RAM". What does that mean?</para></question>
2646<answer>
2647<para>A: Recompile your kernel and add Virtual memory file system
2648support. Take a look at <link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux
2649Kernel support</link> to see what your kernel must support. (Of
2650course, if your PC has less than 64MB of RAM, you could always...
2651what's the phrase? I know, upgrade your RAM!)</para>
2652</answer>
2653</qandaentry>
2654<qandaentry>
2655<question><para>Q: When I try to boot from the Mondo CD,
2656it says something about not finding my CD-ROM drive and then it
2657blames the kernel. What does that mean?</para></question>
2658<answer>
2659 <para>A: Your kernel must support initrd, loopfs, IDE|SCSI|USB CD-ROM's, and
2660ramdisks. Take a look at <link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux
2661Kernel support</link> to see what your kernel must support. If
2662your kernel does not support these things, Mondo will not boot from
2663your CD. However, when running Mindi, you may choose to use _its_
2664kernel instead of your own.
2665</para>
2666</answer>
2667</qandaentry>
2668<qandaentry>
2669<question><para>Q: The LILO Mondo media takes ages to
2670 boot. How can I speed it up?</para></question>
2671<answer>
2672<para>A: Edit mindi (it's a shell script, btw) and change
2673LILO_OPTIONS="" to LILO_OPTIONS="-c". This enables map compaction
2674in lilo and speeds up booting, for more info see the lilo man
2675page.</para>
2676</answer>
2677</qandaentry>
2678<qandaentry>
2679<question><para>Q: I made a Mondo CD using the failsafe
2680kernel (i.e. I said 'no' when Mondo asked if I wanted to use my own
2681kernel). It still doesn't boot. Help!</para></question>
2682<answer>
2683<para>A: OK, now that is a bug. :-) I included a kernel with Mondo
2684(technically, with Mindi, which Mondo uses) to make sure that users
2685could use Mondo despite flaws in their own kernels. If you are
2686using Mondo/Mindi's kernel but still cannot boot from your Mondo CD
2687then please e-mail the &ML;.</para>
2688</answer>
2689</qandaentry>
2690<qandaentry>
2691<question><para>Q: Why won't Mondo boot from my CD?
2692It says my kernel is flawed/outdated/ whatever, and when I wrote to
2693the ML, they told me the same thing... but I still don't get it. I
2694mean, my kernel works for everything else. Why not Mondo?</para></question>
2695<answer>
2696<para>A: Because Mondo makes a boot disk using your kernel. I bet
2697your other software doesn't do that. Also, not all kernels are
2698suitable for boot disks. I'm sorry but that's Life. Upgrade your
2699kernel and/or recompile it. Take a look at
2700<link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux Kernel support</link> to see
2701what your kernel must support.</para>
2702</answer>
2703</qandaentry>
2704<qandaentry>
2705<question><para>Q: Why do I only need a boot disk if I'm
2706 using a tape drive? Where are the data disks?</para></question>
2707<answer>
2708<para>A: On the tape. :-) The first 32MB of the tape will be set
2709aside for a large tarball containing the data disks, a list of all
2710files backed up, and other sundries. If Mondo and Mindi do their
2711respective jobs then you won't need additional media, just the
2712boot media and the tape(s).</para>
2713<para>As of 2.2.6 mondorescue does support OBDR for tapes.
2714 So if you have a tape supporting that protocol such as HP tape readers, you may directly boot from the tape as well.</para>
2715</answer>
2716</qandaentry>
2717<qandaentry>
2718<question><para>Q: Why does it say, "Process accounting
2719 FAILED" when I reboot?</para></question>
2720<answer>
2721<para>A: You were using Process Accounting. Red Hat (or whichever
2722distro you are using) does not provide a startup/shutdown script
2723yet. So, when you try to backup the process log, it just grows and
2724grows as Mondo tries to back it up. Mondo doesn't back it up
2725anymore and that's why. The unfortunate side-effect is... well,
2726what you see on your screen. Type 'touch /var/log/pacct' and then
2727'paccton' to fix the error message.</para>
2728</answer>
2729</qandaentry>
2730<qandaentry>
2731<question><para>Q: Why does it say,
2732&amp;#8220;request_module[block-major-1]: Root fs not mounted VFS:
2733Cannot open root device "100" or 01:00 Please append a correct
2734"root=" boot option kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
273501:00&amp;#8221; when i boot from the CD?</para></question>
2736<answer>
2737<para>A: Recompile your kernel and add initrd support. Take a look
2738at <link linkend="overview-sysrq-kernelreq">Linux Kernel support</link> to
2739see what your kernel must support.</para>
2740</answer>
2741</qandaentry>
2742
2743<qandaentry>
2744<question><para id="TAPENICE">Q: My tape drive
2745doesn't play nicely with Mondo at boot-time. What do I do?</para></question>
2746<answer><para>A: Play with the 'mt' command (package mt-st). Use its setblksize and
2747defblksize switches to reconfigure your tape drive if necessary.
2748Some tape drives just are painful. If yours is one of
2749them then God help you. Mondo can handle any tape drive whose drive
2750and firmware can handle fopen(), fwrite(), fread() and fclose().
2751Mondo uses standard C libraries to talk to your tape streamer. If
2752your tape streamer can't handle that then you had better call a
2753priest. Either that or ask for a refund.
2754</para>
2755</answer>
2756</qandaentry>
2757</qandaset>
2758</sect1>
2759
2760<sect1 id="faq-install">
2761<title>Installation related Questions</title>
2762<qandaset>
2763<qandaentry>
2764<question><para>Q: Why do I get, "newt.h not found," or
2765"popt.h not found," several times when I try to install
2766Mondo?</para></question>
2767<answer>
2768<para>A: You have not installed libnewt and/or libnewt-devel.
2769Please do so. Check <ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/downloads.shtml#dependencies">Related Linux
2770Packages</ulink> to see what Mondo requires and where you can get
2771tarballs and RPM's. Make sure you are using the right version of
2772newt/libnewt. Read the error messages carefully.</para>
2773</answer>
2774</qandaentry>
2775<qandaentry>
2776<question><para>Q: Newt won't compile when I try. What's
2777 the problem?</para></question>
2778<answer>
2779<para>A: You are probably missing popt.h, which newt needs to
2780compile, it can be found in the 'popt' package. Check your
2781distribution and see if they have popt, if not check
2782<ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/downloads.shtml#dependencies">Related Linux Packages</ulink> to
2783see where you can get it.</para>
2784</answer>
2785</qandaentry>
2786<qandaentry>
2787<question><para>Q: I've just used up 6 CD-R, only to
2788 find that Mondo won't boot!</para></question>
2789<answer>
2790<para>A: You should have used CD-RW. ;) In the HOWTO, it gives
2791instructions on how to create a test CD (one, not six).</para>
2792</answer>
2793</qandaentry>
2794<qandaentry>
2795<question>
2796<para id="PACKREQ">Q: Lots of packages,
2797required by Mondo, are missing from my system. What do I do?</para>
2798</question>
2799<answer>
2800<para>
2801A: Install them. :) If you are using RPM or deb
2802then you'll be told which packages you need. Mondo offers a lot of
2803those packages on its
2804<ulink url="http://www.mondorescue.org/downloads.shtml">Download</ulink>
2805web page.</para>
2806</answer>
2807</qandaentry>
2808</qandaset>
2809</sect1>
2810
2811<sect1 id="faq-hardware">
2812<title>Hardware related Questions</title>
2813<qandaset>
2814<qandaentry>
2815 <question><para>Q: Can Mondo handle CD-RW?</para></question>
2816 <answer>
2817<para>A: Yes. Use '-Ow &lt;speed&gt; &lt;device&gt;' to make it
2818work.</para>
2819</answer>
2820</qandaentry>
2821<qandaentry>
2822<question><para>Q: Does Mondo support tape
2823 drives?</para></question>
2824<answer>
2825 <para>A: Yes. See above.</para>
2826 <para>Of course, mondo will relay on the kernel to support your tape drive. So you should first check that your kernel found it correctly. Use for example one of the following commands:</para>
2827<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2828<row>
2829<entry>
2830 bash# dmesg | grep tape
2831</entry>
2832</row>
2833<row>
2834<entry>
2835 bash# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
2836</entry>
2837</row>
2838<row>
2839<entry>
2840 bash# mt -f /dev/st0 status
2841</entry>
2842</row>
2843</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2844
2845
2846</answer>
2847</qandaentry>
2848<qandaentry>
2849<question><para>Q: Does Mondo support my tape
2850 drive?</para></question>
2851<answer>
2852<para>A: If your tape drive and its firmware and the kernel-level
2853driver support fopen(), fread(), fwrite() and fclose() - standard C
2854library calls - then yes, Mondo should support it. If not, well,
2855you need a refund. :) Mondo plays nicely with any sane, sensible
2856drives. That's most of them, by the way. :) If your drive doesn't
2857play nicely with Mondo then you may try tinkering with setblksize
2858and defblksize using 'mt', or tweaking Mondo's block size by
2859recompiling it with make INTTAPE=4096 or INTTAPE=8192 or something.
2860Other than that, you need a priest or a refund.
2861Also, depending on the tape streamer model, a tape should be inserted
2862in the tape drive before starting mondoarchive, otherwise it may not
2863recognize the drive.</para>
2864</answer>
2865</qandaentry>
2866<qandaentry>
2867<question><para>Q: Sometimes, my laptop won't mount
2868 Mondo CD properly, or something. Umm...</para></question>
2869<answer>
2870<para>A: Please insert the CD, close the CD-ROM tray, wait a few
2871seconds and then press Enter to acknowledge insertion of the next
2872CD. Your laptop is on crack and is sucking a little too hard on the
2873pipe.</para>
2874</answer>
2875</qandaentry>
2876<qandaentry>
2877 <question><para>Q: Does Mondo support Hardware RAID?</para></question>
2878 <answer>
2879<para>A: Yes. You may backup and restore RAID systems. You may also
2880backup a non-RAID system and restore as RAID (or vice versa) by
2881using the mountlist editor to edit your RAID and non-RAID
2882partitions and their settings. Mondo will do the partitioning and
2883formatting for you.</para>
2884<para>Tested Raid controllers includes all those showing only classical devices
2885 such as /dev/sdx, and SmartArray cciss controllers.</para>
2886</answer>
2887</qandaentry>
2888<qandaentry>
2889<question><para>Q: Where is my CD burner, in SCSI terms?</para></question>
2890<answer>
2891<para>A: Type:</para>
2892<para></para>
2893<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2894<row>
2895 <entry>
2896 bash# cdrecord -scanbus
2897 </entry>
2898</row>
2899<row>
2900 <entry>
2901 bash# wodim --devices
2902 </entry>
2903</row>
2904</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2905<para>or for ATAPI type of devices on older kernel versions:</para>
2906<para></para>
2907<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2908<row>
2909 <entry>
2910 bash# cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATAPI
2911 </entry>
2912</row>
2913</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2914<para>you may replace ATAPI by ATA in the previous line with certain cdrecord versions and hadrware configurations</para>
2915
2916
2917<para>Find your CD burner's device# (e.g. '0,0,0'). Call Mondo with
2918the switch '-Oc &lt;speed&gt;' -d '&lt;device&gt;'. Or, if you feel
2919lucky, just use '-Oc 2'; Mondo will (a) assume you want to write at
29204x to a CD-R and (b) will do its best to find your CD burner.</para>
2921</answer>
2922</qandaentry>
2923<qandaentry>
2924 <question><para>Q: Can Mondo handle SCSI devices?</para></question>
2925 <answer>
2926<para>A: Mondo should be able to handle almost any hardware. So
2927long as your kernel and modules support it, Mindi will support it
2928and therefore so will Mondo.</para>
2929</answer>
2930</qandaentry>
2931<qandaentry>
2932 <question><para>Q: Why doesn't cdrecord -scanbus work ?</para></question>
2933 <answer>
2934 <para>A: If you have a 2.4.x kernel (typical example are fedora legacy kernels for redhat 7.X/8/9) and an IDE CDRW device, and the drive is not
2935listed when you run
2936
2937<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
2938<row>
2939<entry>
2940bash# cdrecord -scanbus
2941</entry>
2942</row>
2943</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
2944
2945try adding the following kernel option to your boot script to enable
2946SCSI emulation: hdx=ide-scsi, where "hdx" should be replaced with the
2947appropriate drive letter of the CDRW device, e.g., "hdc".
2948(Answer provided by Christopher Moriarity cdm7_at_cdc.gov)
2949</para>
2950</answer>
2951</qandaentry>
2952</qandaset>
2953</sect1>
2954
2955<sect1 id="faq-backup">
2956<title>Backup related Questions</title>
2957
2958<qandaset>
2959<qandaentry>
2960<question><para id="MMKM">Q: Mondo says, 'Cannot
2961 run mindi --makemountlist' and aborts. What do I do?</para></question>
2962<answer>
2963 <para>
2964 A: Look at <filename>/var/log/mindi.log</filename> and see what it
2965says. Also, try typing 'mindi --makemountlist /tmp/mountlist.txt'
2966to see what Mindi says. Send the log to the &ML; if you get stuck.
2967</para>
2968</answer>
2969</qandaentry>
2970<qandaentry>
2971<question><para>Q: Can Mondo burn CD as they are
2972 created?</para></question>
2973<answer>
2974<para>A: Yes. Use the '-Oc &lt;speed&gt;' switch. Use a negative
2975number for a dummy burn.</para>
2976</answer>
2977</qandaentry>
2978<qandaentry>
2979<question><para>Q: Mondo failed to burn my CD. It said
2980something like, "Error CDB A1 01 02 53 ..." and so on. What does
2981that mean?</para></question>
2982<answer>
2983<para>A: Cdrecord reported some serious errors while trying to burn
2984your CD. Check your CD burner, your CD-R and your kernel.</para>
2985</answer>
2986</qandaentry>
2987<qandaentry>
2988<question><para>Q: May I backup my system with one
2989 partition layout and restore with another?</para></question>
2990<answer>
2991<para>A: Yes. Boot in Interactive Mode and edit the mountlist using
2992the snazzy new mountlist editor. Mondo can now edit your RAID
2993partitions for you. Just open /dev/md0 (or whatever) and select
2994"RAID.." to start. Or, to add a RAID device:</para>
2995<itemizedlist>
2996<listitem>
2997<para>Add two or more partitions, of type and mountpoint
2998'raid'</para>
2999</listitem>
3000<listitem>
3001<para>Add device '/dev/md0' and click OK</para>
3002</listitem>
3003<listitem>
3004<para>Follow the prompts and your own common-sense :)</para>
3005</listitem>
3006</itemizedlist>
3007</answer>
3008</qandaentry>
3009<qandaentry>
3010<question><para>Q: Why does Mondo need so much free disk
3011 space?</para></question>
3012<answer>
3013 <para>A: Because it need space to create the archive files with afio, then
3014 again space to create the ISO images that you'll be able to burn.
3015</para>
3016</answer>
3017</qandaentry>
3018<qandaentry>
3019<question><para>Q: I am trying to do something clever,
3020e.g. write my ISO's to an NFS mount, and I get some weird error
3021messages. What do I do?</para></question>
3022<answer>
3023<para>A: Well, (a) use '-T /tmp' or '-T /home' or something in your
3024 call to Mondo. Oh, and (b) check the <filename>/etc/exports</filename> file on your NFS server
3025 and verify the exported filesystem is writable for the client, and relaunch exportfs -a.
3026</para>
3027</answer>
3028</qandaentry>
3029<qandaentry>
3030<question><para>Q: Can Mondo backup to data files on
3031 another partition, e.g. an NFS mount?</para></question>
3032<answer>
3033<para>A: Yes. Just backup as usual but add '-d /mnt/nfs' or
3034wherever your partition is mounted; don't use '-Oc' or '-Ot' at
3035all; just '-Oi -d /root'. Then, after booting from the media
3036which Mondo generates, you need to type 'ISO' at the
3037console.</para>
3038</answer>
3039</qandaentry>
3040<qandaentry>
3041<question><para>Q: Can Mondo backup _to_ an NFS
3042 partition, i.e. backup over a network? How about restoring?</para></question>
3043<answer>
3044<para>A: Yes. Use '-On &lt;mount&gt; &lt;directory&gt;'. Example:
3045</para>
3046<informaltable><tgroup cols="1"><tbody>
3047<row>
3048<entry>
3049
3050 bash# mondoarchive -On nfs://192.168.1.3:/home/nfs
3051
3052</entry>
3053</row>
3054</tbody></tgroup></informaltable>
3055
3056</answer>
3057</qandaentry>
3058<qandaentry>
3059<question><para>Q: Does Mondo handle System or Hidden
3060 attributes when archiving Dos/Win files?</para></question>
3061<answer>
3062<para>A: No. It probably never will, either. Sorry.</para>
3063</answer>
3064</qandaentry>
3065</qandaset>
3066</sect1>
3067
3068<sect1 id="faq-compare">
3069<title>Compare related Questions</title>
3070
3071<qandaset>
3072<qandaentry>
3073<question><para>Q: When I compare my archives to my file
3074system, Mondo tells me there are differences or errors. Are the
3075archives bad?</para></question>
3076<answer>
3077 <para>A: Look at <filename>/tmp/changed.files</filename>; if the files are logfiles,
3078temp files or files which you think you may have changed recently
3079then the archives are simply out of date, albeit only by a few
3080minutes. Not a problem. However, if lots of files in /usr have
3081changed or if you get lots of errors then perhaps your CD, your
3082tapes or even your hardware could be to blame. Check your CD writer
3083or tape streamer.</para>
3084<para>Also, don't forget to review <filename>/var/log/mondoarchive.log</filename> for
3085more information.</para>
3086</answer>
3087</qandaentry>
3088</qandaset>
3089</sect1>
3090
3091<sect1 id="faq-restore">
3092<title>Restore related Questions</title>
3093<qandaset>
3094<qandaentry>
3095<question><para>Q: Can Mondo help me
3096 move/resize/re-allocate my partitions?</para></question>
3097<answer>
3098<para>A: Yes. Just backup your system in Interactive Mode using
3099Mondo. Edit the mountlist when prompted.</para>
3100</answer>
3101</qandaentry>
3102<qandaentry>
3103<question><para>Q: My zip drive is a SCSI drive. When I
3104restore, Mondo craps out, saying it can't mount the drive (because
3105there is no disk in it). What do I do?</para></question>
3106<answer>
3107<para>A: Restore in Interactive Mode. Delete the SCSI drive from
3108the mountlist before you restore. Then Mondo won't try to partition
3109or format it. Next time you backup, use -E /dev/sdd (or whatever
3110your zip drive is). The /dev entry will be excluded from the
3111mountlist but not from the filelist. So, when you restore, you
3112won't accidentally reformat your zip disk. However, after
3113restoring, you will find that /dev/sdd (the _file_) will still be
3114present in your /dev directory. Cool, eh?</para>
3115</answer>
3116</qandaentry>
3117<qandaentry>
3118<question><para>Q: I received a message like, 'Fileset
3119 NNN failed' during restore. What does it mean.</para></question>
3120<answer>
3121<para>A: It usually means either you had a very large (&gt;2GB)
3122file which was not archived owing to a flaw in your distro or your
3123filesystem has changed in relation to the backup.</para>
3124</answer>
3125</qandaentry>
3126<qandaentry>
3127<question><para>Q: Why does my ext3 partition have less
3128 space free than when I backed it up?</para></question>
3129<answer>
3130<para>A: Mondo creates a 10MB journal file area. Your journal was
3131probably smaller than that, hence the difference.</para>
3132</answer>
3133</qandaentry>
3134<qandaentry>
3135<question><para id="SEGF">Q: When I restore after
3136booting from the media, I sometimes get errors like, "Running
3137out of memory" or "Segmentation fault". What is going on?</para></question>
3138<answer><para>A: It sounds as if you are running out of disk
3139space, probably ram disk space. Type 'df -m' to see which
3140partitions are running low on space. Please send as much
3141information as you can to the &ML;. This problem is
3142believed to have been fixed in 1.63 and 1.71.</para>
3143</answer>
3144</qandaentry>
3145<qandaentry>
3146<question>
3147<para id="LVM">Q: I can't nuke-restore my LVM or RAID or
3148LVM-on-RAID setup. I have to do it manually. What now?</para></question>
3149<answer>
3150<para>A: You said it yourself. You have to do it manually. :) Sorry
3151but that's about it. At least you have all the tools to do it. I
3152assume you know how. If you don't, look at i-want-my-lvm (a script
3153on the ramdisk) if you're using LVM. It should give you a few
3154clues. RAID is harder but in general Mondo's RAID support is good.
3155After you've prepped and formatted your drives, run mondorestore
3156again but say 'no' when asked if you want Mondo to prep or format
3157your drives.</para>
3158</answer>
3159</qandaentry>
3160</qandaset>
3161</sect1>
3162</chapter>
3163
3164&gfdl;
3165
3166</book>
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