Restoring Old System

[Rick Stevens]

Al Sparks wrote:
> I'm trying to restore an older system from bare metal.
> 
> So what I do is install RHEL, install the backup client (netvault), and proceed to restore, but exclude /etc and /boot from the restore.
> 
> After the restore, I can't get a X-Windows display.
> 
> What else should I exclude from the restore?

It would help if you could be a bit more specific about "can't get an
X-Windows display", such as error messages or more detail about what
happens.

Remember that X went from XFree86 to Xorg between RHEL 3 and 4, so if
you're restoring /lib[64], /usr/lib[64] and things of that nature, you
may be stomping on the Xorg stuff you need to make it go.  In fact, it's
entirely likely you're stomping on LOTS of the system and I'm somewhat
amazed it even boots up since your kernels, applications, libraries and
such are fairly interdependent.

Ideally, backups should back up everything, but you should only
restore that which you need such as /home, /usr/local, /opt and things
where you know your applications expect them.

Another option is for you to boot up the new bare metal off one of the
many live CD distributions out there (Fedora comes to mind) and use that
to do the restore to get a functional system again.  Note that it'll be
the old RHEL version.

Once that's done, boot the newly functional system and do an upgrade to
the new RHEL you want.  That way you have all the old stuff you had AND
get the new RHEL.

It's just a thought (and I've done it before).
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                       rps2 at nerd.com -
- Hosting Consulting, Inc.                                           -
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