[ale] OT:slightly-Solaris system recovery system

[Joseph A Knapka]

Greg wrote:
> 
> I would suggest using raid.  I mean once you erase data, it is gone forever,
> unless 1) you only erased a "reference" to the data and it is still there or
> 2) you have it somewhere else.  The parity function in raid allows this to
> happen.  Of course you could keep an infinite list of what you changed and
> the old values/whatnot - but it seems this is just a mild form of
> cvs/version control - MS style, - and you pay for it in disk space, btw.

I don't think RAID will defend you against willful stupidity :-)
The only defense against a sysadmin who is *actually afraid* he
might do rm -rf /, is a comprehensive backup routine. I mean,
if you do rm -rf /, your data on a RAID array will be just as
gone as if it were on a single drive. The real solution is not
to let such a person anywhere near the box in question!

-- Joe
 
> A cheap trick is to set up the Solaris box so deletion just puts stuff into
> a temp directory that deletes the oldest stuff on a cron job.
> 
> Question ....  once you change the system (he *IS* doing updates/patches,
> right ?) you would have to make a new ISO image or do *all* of the patches
> to that one old image, yes ??
> 
> My .02 Euros worth is go RAID 5.
> 
> g
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jeff Rose [mailto:jojerose at mindspring.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 12:19 PM
> > To: ale at ale.org
> > Subject: [ale] OT:slightly-Solaris system recovery system
> >
> >
> > I have a friend who manages a network of computers for a small company
> > here in town.  They are all Windows machines save a lone Solaris 5.6
> > box.  Of course all the trouble he encouters happens with the windows
> > machines.  Except the time he decided to mess with the Solaris box and
> > entered the command rm /something/* and discovered he'd just deleted the
> > company's database and program files.  Luckily there was a backup and he
> > was able to reinstall the necessary programs.
> >       So he decided he needs a system restore like in Windows.
> > He wants me
> > to help him build something he can easily use to restore the entire OS
> > in case he decides to issue rm -rf /* next time.  Basically, in case the
> > hard drive fails or is wiped clean he doesn't want to have to reinstall
> > the OS, all the programs and the database.  He wants to be able to push
> > a few buttons and have the system magically reappear.  Is this
> > possible?  I thought maybe he could make an iso image of the whole hard
> > drive and then restore that.  Is there a better way, or even a
> > program/script to do it?  Thanks for the help
> >
> > Jeff
> > --
> > Jeff Rose
> > 1914 Neely Ave
> > East Point, GA 30344
> >
> > 404-766-3885
> >
> > jojerose at mindspring.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
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> >
> >
> >
> 
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-- 
 "I'd rather chew my leg off than maintain Java code, which
 sucks, 'cause I have a lot of Java code to maintain and the
 leg surgery is starting to get expensive." - J. Knapka

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