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A restore is done to a fresh installation of sme server, and then contribs are reinstalled.
A restore is done to a fresh installation of sme server, and then contribs are reinstalled.
As configuration data is restored, you should not need to setup those reinstalled contribs again.
As configuration data is restored, you should not need to setup those reinstalled contribs again.
If you use any add on contrib for backup purposes eg Affa or Dar2 or whatever, then after doing a fresh reinstall of the sme OS, the first thing you do is reinstall the backup contrib and do some basic configuration manually. Then you would restore using that contrib, then you can reinstall all other contribs etc.
It's good admin practise to create an ibay specifically to house a copy of every rpm you install, so you can easily reinstall those from your backed up and restored copies, although with yum repos being available now, it's not so necessary to do this. It does provide a reminder of everything you have installed though, in case you forget.
It's good admin practise to create an ibay specifically to house a copy of every rpm you install, so you can easily reinstall those from your backed up and restored copies, although with yum repos being available now, it's not so necessary to do this. It does provide a reminder of everything you have installed though, in case you forget.
Disk cloning software can also be used, but it must support RAID partitions and lvm volumes, and some software does not.
Disk cloning software can also be used, but it must support RAID partitions and lvm volumes, and some software does not.
The Linux dd command will also copy every bit on a disk, to another mounted disk, but it will be slow and may take a long time for a disk with a lot of data.
The Linux dd command will also copy every bit on a disk, to another mounted disk, but it will be slow and may take a long time for a disk with a lot of data.
Each of these methods has their own practical issues, choose the one that best suits your situation.
From what I have read earlier you will get into trouble trying to restore rpms which have executables installed in the normal Linux file system locations, that's why they should be reinstalled. Also some contribs will need to be updated if you restore to a newer version of the sme OS, so if you automatically restore old contribs, then you will break your server, in some cases.
Add on scripts etc are best implemented via custom templates (which do get backed up), and any scripts can be put into /opt/xxx, and you then add /opt to your list of backup inclusions, or put them into an ibay if preferred, which does get backed up automatically.
The DAR2 contrib has a web interface that is configurable and allows you to create the disaster recovery backup (ie all data and configuration) required to rebuild a server, but you still need to reinstall add on contribs (rpms). It also allows allows selective backup jobs to be done, eg of certain ibays only, depending on your particular needs.
===Reference links===
===Reference links===
