[TriLUG] Ubuntu 18.04 Problems

[Steve Litt via TriLUG]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:02:10 -0400
Bill Weinel <tube.radio at gmail.com> wrote:


> Hi Steve,

> While I understand your point regarding the time involved, in a
> business application, not having bare metal backup is tantamount to
> playing 'russian roulette'. You may never have an O/S problem, or you
> may have an O/S problem occur tomorrow. 

Depends on the business. More later...

> 
> Regardless, it is seen by management as the system administrators 
> responsibility to preserve and protect the information technology
> assets of the business and to insure the business systems are always
> up and available for use when needed, no matter the time expenditure
> necessary in order to do so. 

Yes.

> Consequently, in my opinion, having a current bare metal backup is
> just 'the cost of doing business' and an expected task.

For any business that has a separate, paid "IT person", very true.

I've had my own one man business since 1984, the year I bought my
first computer. By 1989, the computer was absolutely essential to my
business. I always backed up my data, which means information I created
or acquired, and specifically excluded anything which I could buy
again.

One reason for a data-only backup was that it's much easier to do,
although with my current knowledge, setting up a shellscript to back up
to bare metal would be pretty easy.

Another reason is that for most of my life I've considered a fresh new
install a chance to clean out litter and ghosts from operating systemd
past. Matter of fact, I always did it at least once a year, sort of
like spring cleaning.

Another reason is it's likely the restore won't be to the same hardware
as the backup was from. I think Clonezilla can handle that, but for me
Clonezilla wasn't the easiest thing to work with.

Another thing is my philosophy on restorability. Early in my life I had
too much stuff like Fastback backups and Qic tape backups and that DOS
proprietary backup that quickly obsoleted as hardware or software
became unavailable. So now I back up to .tgz files kept on iso9660
formatted optical drives (I don't even use Joliet or whatever it's
called: Strictly 8.3 for maximum compatability). Products that back up
to bare metal tend to be to less standard formats.

So once every couple years I lose everything and need to reinstall and
then restore . I'm out of commission for 2 or 3 days. When I get back
up, I fill all my back book orders, apologize to my customers, and get
back to work. This is not a good situation, but it happens only every
other year, so I don't expend the extra effort and optical media space
backing up software.

By the way, although I mention optical media,  most of my backups go
right on the hard disk of my backup server, and only occasionally do I
burn blu-rays and put them in my bank's safe deposit box.

Bottom line is this: If my business were any bigger I'd back up to bare
metal every time. But being a one-man-band, I forego the extra
per-backup hassle and take the punch when the hard disk shreds.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
June 2019 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive