From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mx1.redhat.com (mx1.redhat.com [172.16.48.31]) by int-mx1.corp.redhat.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id kBSKuTRA011992 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:56:29 -0500 Received: from irobot.com (smtp1.irobot.com [66.238.211.203]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id kBSKuSv2014865 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:56:28 -0500 Message-ID: <45942F64.9050502@hacksaw.org> Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:56:04 -0500 From: Hacksaw MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [linux-lvm] Hot backup for boot/root disk Reply-To: LVM general discussion and development List-Id: LVM general discussion and development List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed" To: linux-lvm@redhat.com I have a Linux system with 2 identical disks for the OS portion. The goal is to have them essentially mirrored, but not continuously. I want to be able to rsync them on occasion. I need this disk to be bootable on a moments notice, in case the main one dies. The layout of the current boot disk is a partition for /boot which is ext3, and then the rest as a LVM set, of essentially one large partition. My first thought is to create the second disk pretty much as the first was created, do the rsyncs, and make some script that will maintain the configuration files which mention the physical disks. I have to admit that it's unclear what they all are. In fact, I'd prefer something clever with disk labels. In the best of all possible worlds, the system would recognize the bootable partitions, and fail over to the backup one if there was a problem with the main one. I would appreciate some advice here. I need this machine to go live in a few days, as the server it's replacing is close to just falling over after more than 6 years of active service, all honor to it.