What is Mondo Rescue?

It backs up your GNU/Linux server or workstation to tape, CD-R, CD-RW, NFS or hard disk partition. In the event of catastrophic data loss, you will be able to restore all of your data [or as much as you want], from bare metal if necessary. Mondo is in use by Lockheed-Martin, Nortel Networks, Siemens, HP (US and France), IBM, NASA's JPL, dozens of smaller companies, and tens of thousands of users.

Mondo supports LVM, RAID, ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, VFAT, and can support additional filesystems easily: just e-mail the mailing list with your request. It supports adjustments in disk geometry, including migration from non-RAID to RAID. Mondo runs on all major Linux distributions and is getting better all the time. You may even use it to backup non-Linux partitions, such as NTFS.

Mondo is free! It has been published under the GPL (GNU Public License), partly to expose it to thousands of potential beta-testers but mostly as a contribution to the Linux community. I charge for 1-to-1 technical support to fund Mondo's development.

The package mainly consists of two programs.Mindi Linux and Mondo Rescue are used primarily as Linux backup and cloning tools. The fall in prices of CD-RW drives and writable discs will allow current users to keep good backups and future users to leverage the cloning capability.

Mindi Linux

Mindi Linux creates a set of boot/root floppy disk images that will let you perform basic system maintenance on your Linux distro. The principal virtues of Mindi's boot disks are the fact that they contain your kernel, modules, tools and libraries. You can ask for additional binaries (or other files) to be included on the kit. The libraries will be added for you.

Whichever modules were loaded at backup-time, they are reloaded at boot-time. So, in theory, you will boot into almost the same environment as you were in when you backed up. If you want to add files to your Mindi boot disks, edit '/mindi/deplist.txt' and add the files to that list. The added files and dependencies, will be spread across the data disks at run-time.

Mindi makes sure that Mondo has all the tools it needs at boot-time. Mondo uses fdisk, mkfs, cat, less, more, afio, gzip, bzip2, your keyboard configuration, your glibc libraries, your other libraries, your kernel, your modules, ... a lot! Mindi takes care of all that, so that Mondo can get on with the job of backing up or restoring your data.

Mindi is also handy for making boot CDs/disks which stand on their own. You do not need Mondo. Indeed, if you like, you could use another backup/restore program with Mindi. Just add it to Mindi's dependency list (type 'locate deplist.txt' to find it). Mindi will include your software on its boot CD/disks the next time you run mindi.

Mondo Rescue

Mondo Rescue backs up your file system to CD, tape, NFS (archives stored remotely) or ISO's (archives stored locally). Mondo uses afio as the backup engine; afio is a well-respected replacement for tar. In the event of catastrophic data loss, you may restore some or all of your system, even if your hard drives are now blank. Mondo Rescue can do a lot of other cool things:

• You can use Mondo to clone an installation of Linux. Just backup the crucial stuff and exclude /home, /var/log, etc.
• You can backup a non-RAID file system and restore it as RAID including the root partition (if your kernel supports that).
• You can backup a system running on one format and restore as another format.
• You can restructure your partitions, e.g. shrink/enlarge, reassign devices, add hard drives, etc, before you partition and format your drives. Mondo will restore your data and amend /etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab accordingly.
• You can backup Linux/Windows systems, including the boot sectors. Mondo will make everything right at restore-time. (However, do run "Scandisk" when you first boot into Windows, just in case.)
• You can use your Mondo backup CD to verify the integrity of your computer.

Hardware Requirements

• Intel(R)-compatible CPU
• 64MB of RAM (128MB recommended)
• 800MB of hard disk space free
• CD writer, tape streamer, NFS share or some way to backup the backups :)

Usefull links and online help:

Mondo Rescue Webpage:
http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/index.html

Download software:
http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/download/contribute.html

Online Documentation:
http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/docs/1.6x-howto/index.html

Quick Start:
http://www.microwerks.net/~hugo/docs/1.6x-howto/quickstart.html