[Server-devel] easy backup solution for Linux?

[Aaron Huslage]

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 7:28 PM, John Watlington <wad at laptop.org> wrote:

>
> One of my big disappointments with Fedora LiveCD is that after
> installing
> an image, it is specific to that hardware.   Once first boot happens,
> further
> customization of the image (to network hardware) happens.
>
> This is a point in favor of:
> OS + config info + system state (ejabberd database, user database &
> info) <=> school server
>
> This also allows enables the case of restoring:
> [new] OS + [new] config info + old system state => new school server
>
> We are really close to supporting a consise declaration of config info,
> I was waiting for Martin to start full time before doing so.



I hate to reopen a possibly thorny discussion, but I think this might be a
platform problem. After reading the archives, I haven't seen one particular
platform discussed that addresses these issues. I do understand the
organizational want to standardize on a Red Hat based system, but the server
should very much (to my mind) be purely an appliance (as opposed to the
laptop, which decidedly is not), so why not choose a distro that is meant to
create appliances and remove a lot of the uncertainty of backups,
configurations and updates.

I have very high-level contacts at rPath (www.rpath.com) who might be able
to provide us with a solution to this problem at little to no cost. They
have a very flexible platform that is designed to keep configuration details
out of pristine packages to create genuine server appliances. Many open
source projects have used rPath to create appliances for their projects
(Asterisk, for instance) and many of the packages that are integrated into
the XS platform now have already been ported. I'm certainly happy to
facilitate a discussion with rPath if Wad or anyone else is interested, just
to get the ball rolling.

rPath just one option that we might look at to streamline shipping this
product. There are certainly other options, which are apparently under
consideration.I don't want to throw a wrench in the great work that's
already been done. Maybe we think about this sort of huge change for the
next release or when the server hardware gets completed.

Servers are what I've done for a living for the past 15 years of my life,
and I've seen projects like this fail because of unnecessary work. I know
you don't know me from Adam. I'm really only interested in helping get the
product out the door with as little reinvention as possible. Whatever the
group decides, I'm happy to help in whatever way I can.

Cheers,
Aaron

-- 
Aaron Huslage - 503.860.1634
http://blog.hact.net
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