Hi, is it possible to make a complete backup of all my linux partitions and boot sector (or whatever it is, you know what I mean right?).
I’m gonna be trying other distros, but I just know I’m gonna be coming back to openSUSE and I don’t want to have to set it all up again.
Is this possible?
yes, I used successfully clonezilla
http://clonezilla.org/
very easy, multilanguage, can clone entire disk and single partitions, very good
On Mon 17 Feb 2014 02:06:02 PM CST, pier andreit wrote:
yes, I used successfully clonezilla
http://clonezilla.org/
very easy, multilanguage, can clone entire disk and single partitions,
very good
Hi
How long does it take to clone a disk?
AutoYaST, a SUSE Studio image (you can configure this as well with
your customizations), a simple backup of your important data I’m sure
would be quicker.
I have a local mirror for updates and the DVD, for me it takes less
that an hour to re-install, update and run a configuration script…
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.10-7-desktop
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That’s the right question. In my case even a NET install ( thank you 150 Mb/sec ) is much faster, specially since you’d have to clone the disk again in case of trouble.
On 2014-02-17 15:31, malcolmlewis wrote:
> Hi
> How long does it take to clone a disk?
Depends… SATA or USB? 
> AutoYaST, a SUSE Studio image (you can configure this as well with
> your customizations), a simple backup of your important data I’m sure
> would be quicker.
Takes time to learn and do it, and a good internet connection.
> I have a local mirror for updates and the DVD, for me it takes less
> that an hour to re-install, update and run a configuration script…
Ah, but you need a local mirror, for speed, or a good and fast internet
connection. A clone copy is standalone. Once setup, it is no hassle: you
start it and leave. Come back later, ready done.
For instance, for this laptop with a 500 GB disk, I clone it entirely to
a 1 TB disk. Clone all, including Windows. There is free space for a
data rsync which can be done oftener. I can use it away from base and my
resources (which I had to do once, failed hard disk on laptop).
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On 2014-02-17 15:56, Knurpht wrote:
>
> That’s the right question. In my case even a NET install ( thank you 150
> Mb/sec ) is much faster, specially since you’d have to clone the disk
> again in case of trouble.
And out of the question for me, at 1 Mb/s.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On Mon 17 Feb 2014 03:04:13 PM CST, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2014-02-17 15:56, Knurpht wrote:
>
> That’s the right question. In my case even a NET install ( thank you
> 150 Mb/sec ) is much faster, specially since you’d have to clone the
> disk again in case of trouble.
And out of the question for me, at 1 Mb/s.
Hi
My situation is a bit different as I run SUSE Manager which deploys
all the rpms, updates, local rpms, repos from obs etc for
openSUSE and SLE (around 41GB at present), but in saying that would it
not make sense to just slowly rsync updates down. Then use YaST add on
creator to make an iso image of the updates.
Then if you do a re-install you can then use this (check the add on
disk option) when rebuilding the machine… You can then have the
portability of both an install dvd and an update dvd(s)…
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.10-7-desktop
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On 2014-02-17 16:24, malcolmlewis wrote:
> On Mon 17 Feb 2014 03:04:13 PM CST, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Hi
> My situation is a bit different as I run SUSE Manager which deploys
> all the rpms, updates, local rpms, repos from obs etc for
> openSUSE and SLE (around 41GB at present), but in saying that would it
> not make sense to just slowly rsync updates down. Then use YaST add on
> creator to make an iso image of the updates.
Ah.
> Then if you do a re-install you can then use this (check the add on
> disk option) when rebuilding the machine… You can then have the
> portability of both an install dvd and an update dvd(s)…
Well, I do something similar. Kind of.
I keep a directory on my big machine, shared via ntfs, where I keep the
stuff from “/var/cache/zypp/packages/”. I also configure all my repos to
“keep downloaded packages”.
When I do updates or installs, the rpms are saved there. When I install
a second time, the rpms are not downloaded from internet because they
are already in the local cache.
It is not as easy as it sounds, though. You have to make sure that the
directory names matches on all installs and make symlinks. If it is a
laptop things get interesting when you are off-site. You can not do
installs on two machines at the same time, on the chance that both
download the exact same file.
This could be done easier with a proxy cache. But it is not that easy
either, because the actual download link is dynamic, it can come from a
number of mirrors.
IMHO, it would be very nice to have a specialized deamon on the
distribution, so that yast/zypper could talk to it.
Anyhow, I find easier, faster and safer to restore from cloned images.
The result is guaranteed to be the same as it was. Was, that is.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On Mon 17 Feb 2014 06:08:12 PM CST, Carlos E. R. wrote:
IMHO, it would be very nice to have a specialized deamon on the
distribution, so that yast/zypper could talk to it.
Hi
It does, it’s called spacewalk 
and zypp-plugin-spacewalk all
deployment is done via a centralized machine, or locally via zypper if
you can’t wait…
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.10-7-desktop
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It takes me 5mins to back up my 120GB SSD and another 5mins if I want to restore it. Clonezilla has been the fastest back up solution for me. Make sure to follow the online tutorial because while the process is quite easy, it is not very intuitive at first. After you get the hang on it, it’s quite simple.
On 2014-02-17 20:07, malcolmlewis wrote:
> Hi
> It does, it’s called spacewalk and zypp-plugin-spacewalk all
> deployment is done via a centralized machine, or locally via zypper if
> you can’t wait…
Oh? 
Do you know of a link explaining it?
I see:
spacewalk-backend
zypp-plugin-spacewalk
on the OBS.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On Mon 17 Feb 2014 09:24:13 PM CST, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2014-02-17 20:07, malcolmlewis wrote:
> Hi
> It does, it’s called spacewalk
> deployment is done via a centralized machine, or locally via zypper if
> you can’t wait…
Oh?
Do you know of a link explaining it?
I see:
spacewalk-backend
zypp-plugin-spacewalk
on the OBS.
Hi
Here you go… http://spacewalk.redhat.com/
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.2 Kernel 3.11.10-7-desktop
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On 2014-02-17 22:51, malcolmlewis wrote:
> On Mon 17 Feb 2014 09:24:13 PM CST, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> Oh?
>>
>> Do you know of a link explaining it?
> Hi
> Here you go… http://spacewalk.redhat.com/
Mmmm…
I don’t know if it does what I thought about. My idea was rather an
automatic repository proxy.
I’ll have to read a bit more.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
Depends on the disk type and size and the backup medium, the speed of the processor, and the amount of RAM, etc.
On a mildly older machine, 2 Gigabytes of RAM, dual processor:
It takes me 2 hours to back up a 200-Gigabyte IDE drive to an external HD, and this includes a l00-Gigabyte NTFS partition (NTFS partitions take a lot longer to back up than ext4 partitions).
It takes significantly less time to restore.
Generally, follow this procedure:
On 2014-02-18 04:36, Fraser Bell wrote:
> It takes me 2 hours to back up a 200-Gigabyte IDE drive to an external
> HD, and this includes a l00-Gigabyte NTFS partition (NTFS partitions
> take a lot longer to back up than ext4 partitions).
When using clonezilla? Yes, possibly.
That may be because clonezilla tries to do clever things like skipping
unused partition sectors, which means looking at the partition
structures. This takes some time, and the speed varies.
Another possibility, is that when clonezilla does not understand a
particular filesystem, instead it does a full sector by sector copy,
which is of course bigger and takes longer.
This second possibility I know that is true; tested not with clonezilla
but with another cloning sofware (cdrescue?). ntfs partitions were
copied byte by byte (which happens to be what I want to do, actually).
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))