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Comment I prefer old school backup (Score 3, Interesting) 34

by dnamaners (#23329376) Attached to: How To Perform a Bare-Metal Backup On Linux LVM
Don't get me wrong, I love centralized backups and backup server/client software (bacula for example). However I use old school methods for a bare metal restore. For simple things blanking the free space and then make a "dd" image is all you need. However you do it, keep it simple, and there may be no need to do bare metal on the whole of a file servers data set. Once I get the core of it back up I can use my favorite software to get the system up-to-the-last-snapshot current.

LVM and Raid can be a little complex if you boot off it so ill give some tips. A nice small boot like SLAX (may favorite) or Knoppix is needed to start any bare metal restore. Pick something that supports the hardware and had LVM and or Raid. Either make a custom disk to add your backup data to the volume or have a 2nd DVD drive. Boot and restore.

I make my backups via simple methods like rsync and tar. I use a few simple scrips to do it all. So simple that it is easy to restore by hand if need be. This makes the restore safer as it can be done a host of ways. Not to mention these unix tools are present in all distributions. Probably the biggest reason for the old school way is that on a bare metal restore often hardware may change. New drives etc, basically failure can be a reason to upgrade etc. Many utilities can choke on big hardware changes, new drive sizes and such.

I take detailed system information and note it in the backup as human notes. Then grab your raid & LVM configuration and write a quick script to rebuild these features via the command line. Basically just a list of the actions you take to make a file system and format them the desired files system types manually. These same scripts will also re-apply boot loader and such as well. If the volumes change after a failure I can just issue updated commands (or edit the script) and make a similar layout of the filesystem. Then just open the tar balls via script or by hand and populate the new filesystem with the files you archived. With a bit of practice all of this can be automated by scripts. But if you need to vary the procedure due to hardware changes or as a way to clone a system you can.
User Journal

Submission + - Slashdot Party in Middleton, WI (flickr.com)

Submitted by dnamaners
dnamaners writes: Well, It's the day after the 10th anniversary Slashdot Party in Middleton, WI. As far as I know we all survived.

I and my lady (yes I have one) arrived around 7:00 pm, apparently we were not the first. There was one lone software DB there in his fervor to get his Friday night started right, with the power of beer. A few other had arrived earlier for dinner first, we did not meet them until later. About 7:25 pm our host Zonk arrived with the big box of gifts. It was perhaps only a few minutes and soon many Slashdotters arrived. Apparently the Pub had reserved us one booth, we were to get more later but for a while there were enough of us present to readily break fire codes. Probably 25 or thirty of us eventually showed up. As far as I know every one got a cool think geek promo code worth $10 off and the promised XL special edition Slashdot tee shirts. The night was for a few beers and conversation, that is what happened. I don't feel the need to say more. Of course, feel free to add if you want to.

The lady took many pictures and put them up on flicker in all their 8 mega pixel glory (1.6 MB each). Feel free to name everybody here or on the Flicker, enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15579773@N08/sets/72157602561010007/

The party was at Claddagh's Irish Pub (1611 Aspen Cmns, Middleton, WI, USA) Our Slashdot host moderator was Zonk (12082). The thing took place on October 19, 2007, 8 pm- 10 pm.
The Courts

Submission + - Florida Judge OK's Claims Against Record Companies (blogspot.com)

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: A federal judge in Tampa, Florida, has ruled that an RIAA defendant's counterclaim against the record companies for conspiracy to use unlicensed investigators, access private computer records without permission, and commit extortion, may move forward. The Court also sustained claims for violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well as a claim under Florida law for deceptive and unfair trade practices. The decision (pdf) by Judge Richard A. Lazzara in UMG v. DelCid rejected, in its entirety, the RIAA's assertion of "Noerr Pennington" immunity, since that defense does not apply to "sham litigations", and Ms. Del Cid alleges that the RIAA's cases are "sham".
Censorship

Submission + - UK Lawyers Are Shutting Down Blogs Left and Right (aol.com) 7

Submitted by zarloq2
zarloq2 writes: Craig Murray's site, along with several other UK-based political blogs have been shut down in response Usmanov's lawyers putting pressure on his webhost.

Here's an excerpt from the sports.aol.com blog:
Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, is badmouthing Alisher Usmanov, the billionaire Russian steel magnate attempting to take over Premier League club Arsenal (UK football club), because he wants to sell you a book he wrote about his experience in that former Soviet republic. It has become clear today, however, that whatever Murray is attempting to sell, Usmanov and his lawyers do not want anyone to buy it.
According to Tom Dunmore at PitchInvasion.net, Craig Murray's web site was taken off line today after sustained pressure on Murray's web hosting provider from Schillings, the London law firm representing Usmanov. What's more, Schillings has also managed to put the kibosh on political site Bloggerheads three days after Tim Ireland wrote this piece on Schillings' cease & desist letters.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of "early settlement" letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to "take a hike". The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."
Privacy

Submission + - MediaDefender gets source code cracked!

Submitted by
DragonTHC
DragonTHC writes: "Slyck news is reporting that MediaDefender has been cracked again and this time, their source code for anti-freedom efforts against p2p and bit torrent. The fifty megabyte download is by the same group that brought you the MediaDefender emails, MediaDefender-Defender."
Music

Submission + - RIAA Pursues Students at Purdue (purdueexponent.org)

Submitted by nbuuck
nbuuck writes: In an article (PDF) from The Exponent, an independent student newspaper at Purdue University, students and faculty learned of another wave of "pre-litigation" letters being forward by the university from the RIAA. These letters are preceded by another group of thirty-seven that were issued to Purdue students in the spring of 2007, eventually leading to seventeen subpoenas for names of university students alleged to have shared music illegally. The RIAA will now be issuing a total of forty-seven to university students, offering each of them a settlement within twenty days upon receiving the notice. Purdue was rated second among university schools that have been identified as being host to illegal file sharing by the RIAA earlier this year (see "Forget Party Schools...", Ars Technica).
Privacy

Submission + - Inside New Office Surveillance Software (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by mattnyc99
mattnyc99 writes: Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics has a frightening look at the growing industry of corporate security investigation, learning how software to spy on your cubicle data, e-mail, phone and even corporate smartphone has grown more powerful and prevalent than ever before. Who knew that digital snapshots of your screen were being taken so frequently? Or that a "poison pill" can shred your company BlackBerry? Or that companies can remotely steal things off your iPod? That countdown clock to a surveillance society is ticking real fast...
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - P2P Sites Mock MediaDefender's Legal Threats (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by
Happy Talk Lika a Pirate Day!
Happy Talk Lika a Pirate Day! writes: "Apparently, MediaDefender's attempts to stop the email leak aren't going so well. Several major BitTorrent sites have replied to their claims with hilarious rejoinders. While they've had somewhat more luck DoSing the new MediaDefender-Defenders web site, which reports that 1020 out of the 1257 IPs that are DoSing them are from known MediaDefender subnets, the BitTorrent sites have just been publishing their legal threats and laughing. ISOHunt responded by asking them, "If Mr. Gerber is truly as experienced in IP law as his bio claims he is why is it that he is incapable of composing a DMCA takedown notice as per USC Title 17 Section 512?" Meganova was even less kind, telling the "asstunnels" what they can go do with themselves and saying "In case you haven't noticed, this site is located in Europe (I hope you can point it out on a map)." Perhaps some US copyright lawyers, like some people out there in our nation, don't have maps?"
The Courts

Submission + - Record Company Collusion a Defense to RIAA Case?

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Is collusion by the record companies a defense to an RIAA case? We're about to find out, because the RIAA has made a motion to strike the affirmative defense of Marie Lindor, who alleged that "the plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have" in UMG v. Lindor. The motion will be decided by the same judge who agreed with legal scholars in sustaining another affirmative defense of Ms. Lindor, in which she alleges (pdf) that the RIAA's $750-per-song-file statutory damages theory is "unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate to any actual damages that may have been sustained, in violation of the Due Process Clause"."
Privacy

Submission + - Rep. Berman Doing Mafiaa Bidding (As Usual) (variety.com)

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "Howard Berman, the Representative from Disney, is once again trying to turn ISPs into part of the RIAA/MPAA's extortion and shakedown juggernaut by requiring them to pass along threatening letters to subscribers that use P2P. This is quite alarming, coming as it does from the head of the house Intellectual Property Committee. Many P2P lawsuits are based on very flimsy evidence, such as an IP address alone. One can only hope that more defendants have positive outcomes such as winning back their attorney's fees."
Music

Submission + - HMV Canada Cut's music CD prices because of piracy 1

Submitted by umStefa
umStefa writes: For the last few years the music industry has claimed that reduced CD sales are the result of piracy, while slashdotters have constantly defended piracy on the grounds that main stream music was overpriced. Well know the largest music retailer in Canada has gone and cut their prices on CD's to try and increase sales (CBC article). If successful could this spur music stores in other countries to reduce their prices? and could it have an effect on piracy rates? or is this simply a move destined to fail (by not increasing CD sales), thereby giving the music industry ammunition to get governments to pass legislation that will support their outdated business model. Only time will tell.
United States

Submission + - Running trail mistaken for bioterrorism threat (msn.com)

Submitted by feuerfalke
feuerfalke writes: A flour-and-chalk trail marked out by Daniel Salchow and his sister Dorothee for their running club, the Hash House Harriers, sparked fears and evacuations Thursday night, and now the siblings are finding themselves in deep trouble with New Haven police. Police were called after they were spotted sprinkling "powder" in the parking lot of an IKEA furniture store, which was later evacuated. The "powder" was, in fact, flour, which the siblings have used plenty of times before, all across the country, to mark trails for their club. The Salchow siblings are now facing felony charges, and New Haven police seek "restitution" for the resources wasted in their mistake. This sounds familiar...
Businesses

Submission + - A&P Supermarket sues over spoof vid seek $1M (c-n.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NJ Kids made a music video they called Produce Paradise, lost their jobs, and now A&P is suing them for 1 million dollars in damanges

CALIFON — It has already cost them their jobs. Now, the fictitious music video "Produce Paradise," created by two Hunterdon County brothers as a way to parody the outlandishness of gangster rap by using veggies as props, could cost them $1 million.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., parent company of the supermarket chain A&P, recently filed a defamation lawsuit in state Superior Court in Flemington against college students Mark and Matthew D'Avella, who until recently stocked shelves at the Califon A&P.

The full article: http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007 0828/NEWS/708280303

The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5iDpxucNFE
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Copyright advocacy group violates copyright (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by
word munger
word munger writes: "Commercial scholarly publishers are beginning to get afraid of the open access movement. They've hired a high-priced consultant to help them sway public opinion in favor of copyright restrictions on taxpayer-funded research. Funny thing is, their own website contains several copyright violations. It seems they pulled their images directly from the Getty Images website — watermark and all — without paying for their use! Clearly their agenda is simply to make using copyrighted materials inconvenient and expensive for everyone but THEMSELVES."

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