Chapter10.Data Backup and Disaster Recovery


Chapter 10. Data Backup and Disaster Recovery

No matter how fault tolerant your server hardware is or if you have implemented the best security measures possible, there is no guarantee that data will never be lost. Sometimes the cause is totally beyond your controla fire caused by a gas leak, for example, or even Mother Nature (remember the Los Angeles earthquake?). Also, to err is human; even the most experienced users and system administrators make mistakes. Deleting the wrong file or mistyping information into a file (such as /etc/passwd) can cause unwarranted headaches and additional work for yourself or coworkers who need to access the data, or, in the worst case, the deletion renders the whole system unusable. Also, a disgruntled user or malevolent hacker may deliberately remove or corrupt essential data or system files; as a matter of fact, most attacks occur from within the company rather than from without. In all cases, having up-to-date backups would be a lifesaver.

Recovering from a hacker break-in can be tedious work. The problem is that once a system has been compromised, it is essentially impossible to determine everything that has occurred, especially if the system's root account was compromised. Log files and audit trails help, but if the hacker covered his or her tracks well, there will be no telltale signs found. So the best way to quickly recover from any break-in is to use a pristine backup.

To be able to use such a backup, it is of utmost importance that you have developed and implemented a reliable data backup and disaster recovery strategy. In this chapter, you learn how to develop a backup plan and how and when to use the standard Linux backup tools, such as tar and cpio. You also find out how to create and use an SLES rescue floppy disk using YaST.

TIP

If you have a corrupted lilo boot loader, boot your system using the rescue disk and then reinstall lilo on the MRB of your hard disk using the /sbin/lilo -M command.




    SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 Administrator's Handbook
    SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 Administrators Handbook
    ISBN: 067232735X
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2003
    Pages: 134

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