Backing up and recovering Linux

It is crucial that you back up your data because you never know when you may need to do a server recovery. You may not be prepared to recover from certain types of disk failures if you do not regularly perform backups. Learn about backing up and recovering a Linux® installation on IBM® System p® or eServer™ System p hardware .

Backing up and recovering partitioned data

Linux on managed systems supports numerous file systems, but those files systems do not share a universal backup-and-restore function. The most commonly used journaling file systems are ext3, Reiser FS, SGI XFS, and IBM JFS. Backup of the ext3 file system is supported by the dump and restore programs. SGI XFS has its own pair of backup utilities: xfsdump and xfsrestore. The Reiser FS and IBM JFS do not have backup programs; the only method currently available for backing up Reiser FS and JFS on Linux is the GNU tar program.

Note: The GNU tar program supports file-system-level backups. It does not operate on the i-node level. It is slower than the dump utility, but it does not care about the underlying file system type. It supports incremental backups and backup of special devices, which is not common for tar implementations.

Backing up and restoring partition profile data

On servers, the HMC is used to back up and restore partition profiles.

Back up profile data

To back up profile data, do the following.

  1. In the Contents area, select the managed system.
  2. From the menu bar, choose Selected > Profile Data > Backup to open the Profile Data Backup window.
  3. Type the file name in the Backup filename field, then click OK. The backup file is saved in the /var/hsc/profiles/MT-MDL*S/N directory on the HMC, as shown in the following example.

[user1@remote_host]$ ssh -l hscroot itsohmc.itsc.austin.ibm.com

hscroot@itsohmcs password: XXXXXX

[hscroot@itsohmc]$ cd /var/hsc/profiles/7040-681*021768A

[hscroot@itsohmc 7040-681*021768A]$ ls -l

total 40

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20464 Nov 27 12:00 backupFile

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20464 Nov 27 12:18 ITSO_p690

MT, MDL, and S/N are the system machine type, model, and serial number.

Restore profile data

To restore profile data, do the following:

  1. In the Contents area, select the managed system.
  2. From the menu bar, choose Selected > Profile Data > Restore to open the Profile Data Restore window.
  3. Select the backup file name that you want to restore from the list.
  4. Select one of the following options.
    • Full restore from the selected backup file: Restores all profile data using only your backup file. Profile modifications performed after the selected backup file was created will be lost.
    • Backup priority – merge current profile and backup: Merges the stored backup with recent profile activity. If information conflicts, the stored backup data is restored over the recent profile activity. Note: Select this option for a managed system in the Recovery state.
    • Managed system priority – merge current profile and backup: Merges recent profile activity with the stored backup. If information conflicts, the recent profile activity is restored over the stored backup data.
  5. Click OK.