Backing up and restoring logical volumes in RHEL 5
Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:17 pm
I've been unsuccessfully attempting to backup and restore a RHEL 5.4 server that is using logical volumes with IFL. I may be using the wrong procedure or missing a step(s) after the restore because I cannot get the restored server to boot. The primary disk is not recognized as a boot disk. Both servers are identical hardware configured exactly the same way. Here is the procedure I am using to do the backup and restore:
Backup:
1.) Boot the server to be backed up with the IFL boot disk.
2.) Configure the networking with a static IP.
3.) Mount the network NFS share to store the backup.
4.) Run start-lvm.
5.) Backup the boot partition to a single file.
6.) Backup the primary logical volume to a single file.
7.) Backups are verified and no errors occur.
Restore:
1.) Boot the server to be restored with the IFL boot disk.
2.) No partitions are initially defined on the server to be restored.
3.) Configure the networking with a static IP.
4.) Mount the network NFS share to restore the backup.
5.) Run start-lvm.
6.) Restore the boot partition to the primary disk setting it to be active.
7.) Use fdisk to create the second partition on the primary disk and a single partition on the secondary disk.
8.) Set the partition types to Linux LVM (8e), the primary disk is mirrored and the secondary disk is RAID 5.
9.) Create the physical volumes with pvcreate.
10.) Create the volume group with vgcreate using the primary disk physical volume.
11.) Create the logical volumes in the volume group (primary and swap volumes).
12.) Extend the volume group with vgextend using the secondary disk physical volume.
13.) Extend the primary disk logical volume to be restored to make it the same size as the backed up primary disk logical volume.
14.) Restore the backed up primary disk logical volume to the restore server primary disk physical volume.
15.) No errors occur during the restores.
16.) Reboot the server.
At this point the server attempts to boot from the CD which is not in the drive, then fails after not finding a system disk from which to boot. Any suggestions would be much appreciated as I have not been able to find any information addressing this issue after googling my fingers off.
Thanks,
Mark R.
Backup:
1.) Boot the server to be backed up with the IFL boot disk.
2.) Configure the networking with a static IP.
3.) Mount the network NFS share to store the backup.
4.) Run start-lvm.
5.) Backup the boot partition to a single file.
6.) Backup the primary logical volume to a single file.
7.) Backups are verified and no errors occur.
Restore:
1.) Boot the server to be restored with the IFL boot disk.
2.) No partitions are initially defined on the server to be restored.
3.) Configure the networking with a static IP.
4.) Mount the network NFS share to restore the backup.
5.) Run start-lvm.
6.) Restore the boot partition to the primary disk setting it to be active.
7.) Use fdisk to create the second partition on the primary disk and a single partition on the secondary disk.
8.) Set the partition types to Linux LVM (8e), the primary disk is mirrored and the secondary disk is RAID 5.
9.) Create the physical volumes with pvcreate.
10.) Create the volume group with vgcreate using the primary disk physical volume.
11.) Create the logical volumes in the volume group (primary and swap volumes).
12.) Extend the volume group with vgextend using the secondary disk physical volume.
13.) Extend the primary disk logical volume to be restored to make it the same size as the backed up primary disk logical volume.
14.) Restore the backed up primary disk logical volume to the restore server primary disk physical volume.
15.) No errors occur during the restores.
16.) Reboot the server.
At this point the server attempts to boot from the CD which is not in the drive, then fails after not finding a system disk from which to boot. Any suggestions would be much appreciated as I have not been able to find any information addressing this issue after googling my fingers off.
Thanks,
Mark R.