Backing up data from your users' workstations is one of the most . taxing jobs for a system admin¬
istrator, and it gets tougher with more machines, and even more if multiple ass are involved. In this article, we will see how to build a backup box, which will do an image-based backup of work¬stations and later on facilitate restora¬tion over the network as well. Plus, it can also be used to do remote image¬based os deployments on backbone ma¬chines across the organization.

For this, we are using a Linux-based backup system called 'Linux rescue server'. The software will allow you to take image-based backups of your Win¬dows XP, Windows 2000/2003 or any UNIX/Linux platform. You can download the Rescue Server from the link given in the Direct Hit box. You will get an ISO file, that has to be burnt on a CD using Nero or any other CD writing software. Make
sure you burn it at 4X writing speed.

To install the Linux rescue server, hence¬forth called LRS, you will require at least a P4 machine with 256 MB RAM and 80 GB HDD. Boot this machine with from the LRS CD you just created. It will ask you to fill in the IP address, Subnet mask, Gate¬way, etc.

Then you would be asked to select keyboard layout etc. The installation takes only 15 minutes. Remove the CD and restart the machine and your LRS is ready.

Configuring DHCP settings
As our rescue server uses PXE (Pre boot eXecution Environment) for backing up and restoring workstation data, you need to configure a DHCP server on it. If you already have a DHCP server, you simply need to configure your server to enable network booting of your rescue machine. For exercising the second op¬tion, first disable the LRS DHCP server, from the Webmin 'System/Bootup and shutdown' module. Click on 'dhcp3¬server' and deactivate the 'Start at boot time' option. ow, on your existing DHCP server, add a few DHCP options in the client addresses' pool, with your usual DHCP server configuration interface. Set the 'filename' to '/tftp¬bootlrevobootlbin/ revoboot.pxe'. It sets the network boot program to load the said file. This option is also usually available as 'BootFileN ame' under 'Option DHCP 67'.

Then, set 'next-server' to the IP ad¬dress of your LRS. It is usually available as 'Boot Server Host Name' under 'Option DHCP 66'. Here, give IP address of your LRS and filename as Itftpbootlrevobootl bin/revoboot.pxe. If you don't have a DHCP server, then you can use the rescue server's DHCP feature.
In order to configure DHCP on this server itself. go to the DHCP form from its Web interface and select 'DHCP server'. Just give the name of the DHCP server here and leave other fields as default and scroll down to the Add pools option. Click on this and specify the IP address range for. the DHCP and Apply the changes. Now, click on 'StartDHCP'. This will start the DHCP server on your network, which will also act as TFTP server.

Taking backups
For taking backup, just boot a worksta¬tion from its network card using PXE boot. On boot, you will get a k):l-ba,,~cl menu. Select' Add a client'. Now, you will be asked for client-name and password, give 'root' as the client-name and pass¬word as 'linbox'. On successful login, you will get another boot menu which lets you launch the system backups and restorations. Select the option 'Image creation shared'. This will connect the machine to the Linux rescue server where all backup images are kept. It will automatically start taking the backup of machines and once the backup process is over the machines are automatically made to shutdown.

Managing backups
Once the backup is taken as an image, next step is to configure the image in such a way that remote workstations
can be restored back, easily. In order to do this, open the administrative console of LRS using a Web browser and go to 'System backup> Image'.

Here, you will be shown the layout of your boot menu and below that you will see the list of backup images (local or sh8r~,i) lJat you have taken. You can ei¬ther burn these images on a CD/DVD, or alternatively, you can move the backup images to the boot menu. This way, when a user workstation is booted from PXE, the backup image is shown in the boot menu and the user can restore back his/her machine just by selecting the backup image name, from the boot menu. The restoration would be done di¬rectly from the LRS system over the net¬work.
If you want to create a CD/DVD out of the backup image, just click on Burn icon given next to the backup im¬age. The system will first create an ISO image of the entire backup and then you can either burn ISO images directly on that system or you can later on download the ISO image and burn it on
the system where you have a CD writer. If you want to move the backup image to boot menu, then go to the im¬age file and click on the upward arrow icon given in the 'To menu' option. This will move the image file into the list of boot menu.
Then from the Web interface, select the 'Boot menus' tab and you will see the backup image that you have moved has come into the boot menu list. Click on Apply button to reflect the changes in the boot menu.

Now when the client workstation boots from the PXE, the boot menu will also contain the name of the image file that we have configured above. By se¬lecting that image, the restoration process will be triggered and the work¬station will be restored back to its origi¬nal state.

This is only one of the useful features of Linbox that we have demon¬strated in this article. There are so many other useful features like inventory management, file backup etc, that
t> you can explore yourself.