Backup and restore installation?

[thedevilsjester]

Because of a need to resize my ext3 partition (qtparted wont do it) I have to backup everything on the partition and delete/recreate it. I do not want to have to go through the trouble of reinstalling the os and spending hours configuring it properly.

So is there a way to backup the entire system and restore it without issue?

If I were to copy every folder and its contents on the root directory into a tarball would that be enough to preserve everything? Is there any special options needed to insure a proper backup?

[ghotam]

Re: Backup and restore installation?

Try g4u ghost for unix.

So is there a way to backup the entire system and restore it without issue?

There are a lot of ways but no one is completly safe.

Bye.

[Teppic]

Re: Backup and restore installation?

For tar:

--one-file-system to stop it straying onto other mounted partitions (/media etc)
-p to preserve file permissions
-j to compress it (if space is an issue, but be sure your restore method can use this)
-v so you can watch it do everything

If you can, extract the archive afterwards to check everything is there, or at least check it with -tv

[aysiu]

Re: Backup and restore installation?

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partimage.html

[thedevilsjester]

Re: Backup and restore installation?

Ah partimage, thats nice, I was wondering if there was a Norton Ghost like app for linux.

Reading info about it, it doesnt look like it will work for what I need, I dont have a separate place to put the backup image, it must be put on the same partition as I am backing up, unless this app has direct to dvd burning capabilities.

I think just compressing it all is going to be my only option, but how well will a restore work from this?