source: MondoRescue/branches/2.2.5/mondo-doc/mondoarchive.8@ 2183

Last change on this file since 2183 was 1885, checked in by Bruno Cornec, 16 years ago
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21.TH mondoarchive 8 "PBDATE" "Mondo Rescue PBVER-rPBVER"
22
23.SH NAME
24mondoarchive \- a backup / disaster\-recovery tool.
25
26.SH SYNOPSIS
27.B mondoarchive -O
28[
29.I options
30] : backup your PC
31.br
32.B mondoarchive -V
33[
34.I options
35] : verify your backup
36
37.SH DESCRIPTION
38.PP
39.I mondoarchive
40backs up a subset of your files, your entire filesystem, or even images of
41non-Linux filesystems to CD's, tape, ISO images or an NFS mount. In the event of
42catastrophic data loss, you will be able to restore everything, taking a PC from
43bare metal to its original state if necessary.
44
45.pp
46With
47.BR \-O ,
48it backs up your filesystem to CD, tape, ISO images or NFS share. Boot media
49or a special boot CD will be created to allow you to restore from bare metal if
50necessary.
51
52.pp
53With
54.BR \-V ,
55it verifies the backup against the live filesystem. This option may be used in
56combination with
57.BR \-O
58to verify a backup after its creation, or on its own to see how much the live
59filesystem has changed since the backup was made.
60
61.pp
62Call mondoarchive
63.BR without
64.BR flags
65to make it auto-detect as many settings as possible, ask you politely for the
66rest, and then backup and verify your OS or a subset thereof.
67
68.pp
69To restore data, either run
70.I mondorestore
71from the command line or boot from the emergency media generated during
72the backup process. The latter will come in handy if a gremlin wipes your hard
73disk.
74
75.SH BACKUP MEDIA
76.TP 13
77You must specify one of the following:-
78
79.TP
80.BI "-c " speed
81Use CD-R drive as backup device and its (write-once) disks as backup media.
82
83.TP
84.BI "-w " speed
85Use CD-RW drive as backup device and its (write/rewrite) disks as backup media.
86Mondo will wipe media before writing to them.
87
88.TP
89.BI "-r "
90Use DVD drive as backup device and its disks as backup media. Growisofs decides
91on the best speed for your drive. Note that calling mondoarchive
92.B using sudo when writing to DVDs will fail
93because growisofs does not support this - see the growisofs manpage for
94details.
95
96.TP
97.BI "-C " speed
98Use CD-R drive as a streaming device, almost like a tape streamer. Use
99write-once disks as backup media.
100.B Experimental.
101
102.TP
103.BI "-p " prefix
104Use
105.B prefix
106to generate the name of your ISO images.
107By default, mondoarchive names images mondorescue-1.iso, mondorescue-2.iso, ...
108Using
109.B -p machine
110will name your images machine-1.iso, machine-2.iso, ...
111
112.TP
113.BI "-i "
114Use ISO files (CD images) as backup media. This is good for backing up your
115system to a spare hard drive. The
116.B -n
117switch is a wiser choice if you plan to restore from a remote filesystem.
118
119.TP
120.BI "-n " mount
121Use files residing on NFS partition as backup media.
122.I mount
123is the remote mount-point, e.g. '192.168.1.3:/home/nfs'
124for my file server. Please mount it before backing up/verifying.
125
126.TP
127.BI "-t "
128Use tape streamer as backup device and its tapes as backup media.
129
130.TP
131.BI "-U "
132Use a generic USB device as backup device. Use this if you want to write
133your backup to a USB key or USB disk, which will be make bootable.
134The USB device should be attached to the system ir order for this to work and
135its device name passed to the
136.BR \-d
137option.
138.B WARNING: All the data on the related device will be removed.
139
140.TP
141.BI "-u "
142Use a generic streaming device as backup device. Use this if you want to write
143your backup to a device that is not directly support by mondoarchive. This will
144send the data directly to a raw device.
145.B For experienced users only.
146
147.SH MAJOR OPTIONS
148.TP 13
149.BI "-D "
150Make a differential backup: examine the filesystem and find which files have
151changed since the last full backup was carried out. Backup only those files.
152
153.TP
154.BI "-E " "\*(lqpath ...\*(rq"
155Exclude path(s) from backup. The paths should be separated with a whitespace.
156Note that mondo automatically excludes removable media (/mnt/floppy,
157/mnt/cdrom, /proc, /sys, /tmp). For example, if you are backing up to an NFS mount but you
158do not want to include the contents of the mount in a backup, exclude your
159local mount-point with this switch. It will also work with partitions, e.g.
160/dev/sdd4 if you have a peculiar SCSI zip drive which insists on showing up in
161the mountlist. NB: If you exclude /dev/sdd4 then the /dev entry itself will
162still be backed up, even though the mountlist entry will be suppressed.
163N.B.: If you specify a directory with a final / its content will be archived so it won't do what you expect.
164
165.TP
166.BI "-I " "\*(lqpath ...\*(rq"
167Include paths(s) in backup. The default backup path is \*(lq/\*(rq but you may
168specify alternatives, e.g. -I \*(lq/home /etc\*(rq to override that.
169
170.TP
171.BI "-J " "file"
172Specify an explicit list of files and directories to include in a plain text file, one item
173(file or directory) per line. Beware that directories placed in that file are not managed recursively contrary to what is done with the -I option.
174
175.TP
176.BI "-N"
177Exclude all mounted network filesystems. This currently means NFS, SMB, Coda, MVFS, AFS
178OCFS and Netware. In other words, only backup the local hard disk(s).
179
180.TP
181.BI "-d " "dev|dir"
182Specify the backup device (CD/tape/USB) or directory (NFS/ISO). For CD-R[W] drives,
183this is the SCSI node where the drive may be found, e.g. '0,1,0'. For tape
184users, this is the tape streamers /dev entry, e.g. '/dev/st0'. For USB users,
185this is the device name of your key or external disk. For ISO users,
186this is the directory where the ISO images are stored. For NFS users, this is
187the directory within the NFS mount where the backups are stored. The default
188for ISO and NFS is '/root/images/mondo'.
189
190.TP
191.BI "-g "
192GUI mode. Without this switch, the screen output of mondoarchive is suitable
193for processing by an 'expect' wrapper, enabling the user to backup nightly via
194a cron job. However, if you want to run this program with an attractive but
195non-cron-friendly interface then use '-g'.
196
197.TP
198.BI "-k " "path"
199Path of user's kernel. If you are a Debian or Gentoo user then specify
200.B -k FAILSAFE
201as your kernel. Otherwise, you will rarely need this option.
202
203.TP
204.BI "-m "
205Manual (not self-retracting) CD trays are often found on laptops. If you are
206a laptop user, your CD burner has BurnProof technology or you experience
207problems with mondo then please call mondoarchive with this switch.
208
209.TP
210.BI "-o "
211Use LILO as boot loader of boot media instead of SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX. By
212default, SYSLINUX is used for USB and ISOLINUX for CD's. Use LILO if you
213prefer to use that boot loader. NB: This does not affect which boot loader you
214use to boot your PC, merely the boot loader used by the media created
215by Mondo. Use ELILO instead which is mandatory for IA64 machines.
216
217.TP
218.BI "-s " "size"
219How much can each of your backup media hold? You may use 'm' and 'g' on the end
220of the number, e.g. '700m' for an extra-large CD-R. You no longer need to
221specify the size of your cartridges if you are backing up to tape.
222
223.TP
224.BI "-x " "'dev ...'"
225Specify non-Linux partitions which you want to backup, e.g. NTFS or BeOS.
226
227
228.SH MINOR OPTIONS
229.TP 13
230.BI "-[0-9] "
231Specify the compression level. Default is 3. No compression is 0.
232
233.TP
234.BI "-A " "command"
235This command will be called after each CD/NFS/ISO file is written. It is useful
236if you want to do something with an ISO after creating it, e.g. write it to a
237CD burner using a non-standard command.
238.B -A
239understands two tokens - _ISO_ and _CD#_ - which will be translated into the
240ISO's filename and its index number (1, 2, ...) respectively. So, you could use
241.I -A 'foobackup _ISO_; rm -f _ISO_'
242to feed each ISO to some magical new backup tool.
243
244.TP
245.BI "-B " "command"
246This command will be called before each CD/NFS/ISO file is written. See
247.B -A
248for more information.
249
250.TP
251.BI "-H "
252When you boot from the tape/CD, your hard drive will be wiped and the archives
253will be restored. Your decision to boot from the tape/CD will be taken as
254consent. No further permission will be sought.
255.B Use with caution.
256
257.TP
258.BI "-L "
259Use lzo, a fast compression engine, instead of bzip2. You may find lzo on
260Mondo's website or via FreshMeat. WARNING! Some versions of LZO are unstable.
261
262.TP
263.BI "-G "
264Use gzip, the standard and quicker Linux compression engine, instead of bzip2.
265
266.TP
267.BI "-R "
268EXPERIMENTAL. Do not use in mission-critical environments. Star is an alternative to afio. Mondo now supports POSIX ACLs and extended attributes, so -R is essentially redundant for now.
269
270.TP
271.BI "-P " "tarball"
272Post-nuke tarball. If you boot into Nuke Mode and everything is restored
273successfully then the
274.I post-nuke
275script will be sought and executed if found. This is useful for post-restore
276customization. It is assumed that the tarball (.tar.gz format) will contain not
277just the
278.I post-nuke
279script (or binary, or whatever it is) but also any files it requires.
280
281.TP
282.BI "-S " "path"
283Specify the full pathname of the scratchdir, the directory where ISO images are built before being
284archived. If you have plenty of RAM and want to use a ramdisk for scratch
285space, specify its path here.
286
287.TP
288.BI "-T " "path"
289Specify the full pathname of the tempdir, the directory where temporary files (other than ISO images
290being assembled) are stored. See
291.B -S
292
293.TP
294.BI "-W "
295Don't make your backup self-booting. This is a really bad idea, IMO. Don't do
296this unless you have really great boot disks in your hand and you are an anally
297retentive SOB who can't wait 2 minutes for Mindi to run in the background. If
298you use -W then you'd better know what the hell you're doing, okay?
299
300.TP
301.BI "-b "
302Specify the internal block size used by the tape drive. This is usually 32K but
303some drives just don't like that. They should but they don't. That's what
304happens when tape drive vendors don't talk to kernel driver writers. Try 512 or
30516384.
306
307.TP
308.BI "-e "
309Don't eject the CD or tape when backing up or restoring... unless cdrecord
310insists on it. If it does, well, tough. Sorry. :)
311
312.TP
313.BI "-f " "device"
314Specify the drive on which your Master Boot Record lives. Usually, this is
315discovered automatically.
316
317.TP
318.BI "-l " "GRUB|LILO|ELILO|RAW"
319Specify the boot loader. By default, your Master Boot Record is examined and
320the boot loader can usually be discovered. If you specify RAW then the MBR will
321be backed up and restored byte-for-byte without any analysis. It is likely that
322you will also need to specify the boot device with -f <dev>. ELILO is mandatory
323for IA64 machines.
324
325.TP
326.BI "-Q "
327Give more detailed information about the boot loader.
328
329.TP
330.BI "-K " "loglevel"
331Specify the loglevel. Use 99 for full debug. Standard debug level is 4.
332
333.TP
334.BI "-z "
335Use extended attributes and acl for each file and store them in the backup media. Use this option if you use SElinux e.g. but it will slow down backup and restore time of course.
336
337
338.SH DIAGNOSTICS
339Mondo generates one additional, and extremely important file:
340.BI /var/log/mondoarchive.log.
341When seeking technical support, attach this file to your email.
342
343
344
345.SH FILES
346.IR /var/log/mondoarchive.log
347This log contains important information required to analyse mondoarchive
348problem reports. Did I already said that it's highly recommended to send this file with
349support questions.
350
351.SH NOTES
352A link to Mondo's HTML-based manual (by Bruno Cornec, Mikael Hultgren, Cafeole, Randy Delphs,
353Stan Benoit, and Hugo Rabson) may be found at
354.I http://www.mondorescue.org/docs.shtml
355- or in
356.I /usr/share/doc/mondo-x.xx
357on your hard drive.
358
359.SH BUGS
360It is recommend that your system has more than 64 MB ram. SCSI device order
361change with nuke can have unexpected results. It is recommended you use expert
362mode with drastic hardware reconfigurations.
363
364.SH EXAMPLES
365
366.BI ISO:
367Backup to a directory; note that /mnt/foo's contents will be backed up except
368for its ISO's unless you exclude it, as follows:-
369.br
370.I "mondoarchive -Oi -d /mnt/foo -E '/mnt/foo /mnt/foo2' -p \`hostname\`-\`date +%Y-%m-%d\`"
371
372Backup to ISO's non-interactively, e.g. as a job running in /etc/cron.daily:
373.br
374.I "mkdir -p /bkp/\`date +%A\`; mondoarchive -Oi -9 -d /bkp/\`date +%A\` -E /bkp"
375
376.BI DVD:
377Backup PC using DVD Media:
378.br
379.I "mondoarchive -OVr -d /dev/scd0 -gF -s 4480m"
380
381.BI TAPE:
382Backup to tape, using lzo compression (WARNING - can be unstable):
383.br
384.I "mondoarchive -Ot -d /dev/st0 -L"
385
386Verify existing tape backup which was made with lzo compression:-
387.br
388.I "mondoarchive -Vt -d /dev/st0 -L -g"
389
390Backup to tape, using max compression:
391.br
392.I "mondoarchive -Ot -9 -d /dev/st0 "
393
394.BI CD-R:
395Backup to 700MB CD-R disks using a 16x CD burner:
396.br
397.I "mondoarchive -Oc 16 -s 700m -g"
398
399Verify existing CD-R or CD-RW backup (works for either):-
400.br
401.I "mondoarchive -Vc 16"
402
403.BI CD-RW:
404Backup to 650MB CD-RW disks using a 4x CD ReWriter:
405.br
406.I "mondoarchive -Ow 4"
407
408Backup just your /home and /etc directory to 650MB CD-RW disks using a 4x CD
409ReWriter:
410.br
411.I "mondoarchive -Ow 4 -I \*(lq/home /etc\*(rq"
412
413.BI NFS:
414Backup to an NFS mount:
415.br
416.I "mondoarchive -On 192.168.1.2:/home/nfs -d /Monday -E /mnt/nfs"
417
418Verify existing NFS backup:-
419.br
420.I "mondoarchive -Vn 192.168.1.2:/home/nfs -d /Monday"
421
422.BI USB:
423Backup to your USB key, using gzip compression:
424.br
425.I "mondoarchive -OU -d /dev/sda -G"
426
427.BI RAID:
428Backup PC to a Software Raid mount point, iso size 700mb:
429.br
430.I "mondoarchive -O -s 700m -d /mnt/raid"
431
432
433.SH "SEE ALSO"
434afio(1), bzip2(1), find(1), mindi(8), mondorestore(8).
435.SH AUTHORS
436Bruno Cornec (lead-development)
437.I "bruno_at_mondorescue.org"
438.br
439Andree Leidenfrost (co-developper)
440.I "aleidenf_at_bigpond.net.au"
441.br
442.SH ORIGINAL AUTHORS
443Hugo Rabson (original author)
444.I "hugo.rabson_at_mondorescue.org"
445.br
446Jesse Keating (original RPM packager)
447.I "hosting_at_j2solutions.net"
448.br
449Stan Benoit (testing)
450.I "troff_at_nakedsoul.org"
451.br
452Mikael Hultgren (docs)
453.I "mikael_hultgren_at_gmx.net"
454.br
455See mailing list at http://www.mondorescue.org for technical support.
456.
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