installing a slave HD on my debian perfect server

[cruz]

I have a debian perfect server setup and running. I want to add a slave HD to it and use ghost for linux for a redundant backup. Can someone please explain what I do affter installing the HD and reboot the server? What I guess I need is directions on how to prep the drive before I run ghost. Thank you for the help.

[topdog]

I have a debian perfect server setup and running. I want to add a slave HD to it and use ghost for linux for a redundant backup. Can someone please explain what I do affter installing the HD and reboot the server? What I guess I need is directions on how to prep the drive before I run ghost. Thank you for the help.

I dont know about ghost but if you have identical disks you can use dd to mirror the disks

dd if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk2

[cruz]

They are not the same size. I guess I will setup another server and use this setup. I just wish there was an easy way to backup and restore the whole hard drive. So I don't have to reinstall everything. Like a image and then incramental backups. I guess it is the database that has to be stoped, so it dose not get curuped. I guss this program will work for what I am talking about. Back Up/Restore Hard Drives And Partitions With Ghost4Linuxhttp://www.howtoforge.com/back_up_restore_harddrives_partitions_with_ghost4l inux

[topdog]

Well after doing a dd you can then use rsync to keep the two the same.

[cruz]

I slaved the drive and ran the commad dd if=/dev/disk1 of=/dev/disk2it is telling me /dev/disk1 : no such directory. Do I need to format the drive?
I tried to type dd at the command promp and now I can not get out of it. I can type on the screen , but it will not take commands. Help

[topdog]

disk1 is supposed to be the device on your machine i just used that as an example.

to see the disks you can run fdisk -l or dh -h

[cruz]

I see that drive one is 61.4GB with patitions hda1 hda2 hda5 and the slave is 30..0 GB and is hdb. How do I prepair the drive to be used? I think it is formated for windows. (NTFS)
I figued out how to setup the drive. I setup all 30 GB on one patition. Can I copy the first drive to the 2nd drive if the drives are diffrent sizes? Also what about databases? will they transfer ok?

[topdog]

I see that drive one is 61.4GB with patitions hda1 hda2 hda5 and the slave is 30..0 GB and is hdb. How do I prepair the drive to be used? I think it is formated for windows. (NTFS)
I figued out how to setup the drive. I setup all 30 GB on one patition. Can I copy the first drive to the 2nd drive if the drives are diffrent sizes? Also what about databases? will they transfer ok?
dd is a low level copy you dont have to do anything. The only requirement is that the drives are the same size, because it will copy even the partition layout.

[cruz]

I guess I will setup another server and try and see what are the best and easy to use programs to backup files and databases for my websites. I guess I need something to create an image and then incremental backups. Thanks for the information Topdog. I learned some things from this post. If you have any suggestions as to what I might setup, please reply, but if not, thanks for your help.

[falko]

I suggest a combination of rsync and MySQL replication:
http://www.howtoforge.com/mirroring_with_rsync
http://www.howtoforge.com/back_up_mysql_dbs_without_interruptions

[cruz]

I want to say thank you for your direction in this matter. You always give good advice falko.