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Rod Wright
2026-03-03 19:53:38 -05:00
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Option 2 of the RescueBRU main menu (Do a backup) allows backups to
be performed. It first attempts to mount the particular backup media
you selected, and then asks you to choose an image name from a list
or supply a new name for the backup. This name will become the name
of the directory on the NFS server or USB drive where the backup
images are stored. It should be short, but descriptive. It cannot
contain spaces or special characters. For example, "SJ#4 Display PC
3 (Pilot/ WSO UFCs)" would not be accepted. A better alternative
would be "sj4disppc3". After you supply a name for the backup, a
directory is created on the backup media to store the images.
RescueBRU then probes the hard drives and generates a list of drives
and their partitions. Because you may not always want to back up all
partitions of all drives, RescueBRU prompts you whether or not to
back up each MBR and each partition. Select what you want with the
spacebar. After choosing MBRs and partitions, you will be prompted
to confirm the options. Once you have selected Ok and confirmed, the
master boot records and the partitions you chose are backed up.
An important note about the dd method:
When selecting drives and partitions to be backed up using this
method, be aware that dd backs up the entire drive (/dev/sda
for example) not just the MBR like the other methods. This means
that if you select a drive (/dev/sda) you should probably not select
any of the drive's partitions, since the data contained on them is
already in the backup of the drive itself. Selecting the drive and
its partitions will make the backup take a long, long time and be
ludicrously huge. However, RescueBRU never assumes it knows more
than you and will happily oblige if you tell it to.
When the backup is complete, the backup media is unmounted and you
are returned to the main menu. From here you can perform other
operations or exit RescueBRU.

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This determines the level of compression used when doing a backup. The
following options are available:
low
Uses either no compression (for partimage and dd) or the lzo
compression algorithm (for fsarchiver). The advantage is that it's
very fast on the client side. The disadvantage is that the size of
the backup will be large; in most cases as large as the original
data. Using this setting really only makes sense if you have vast
amounts of storage space for your backups and a very fast network,
or if you know that your data is pretty much uncompressible, such as
a compressed database. Note that even though low compression is fast
on the client side, you may still run into speed limitations of the
storage subsystem on the server side, or of the network.
normal
Uses the gzip compression algorithm to give the best compromise
between speed and backup size. This is the default compression level.
high
Uses the bzip2 compression algorithm (for partimage and dd) or the
lzma compression algorithm (for fsarchiver). This results in a very
good compression ratio requiring less space to store the backup.
However, this comes at the price of high CPU and memory usage on the
client side. A backup done with high compression will probably take
a long, long time to accomplish. Additionally, if there is
insufficient memory available on the client, the compression may
fail altogether, resulting in the backup being stored uncompressed.
If you want to use high compression, testing is advised before
deciding to use it for real.

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Option 4 of the RescueBRU main menu (Disk Utilities) allows you to
perform various drive maintenance actions. These actions are
described below.
Clone disk
RescueBRU generates a list of hard drives. You are then prompted to
select the source and destination drives from menus. You will then
be asked to confirm your actions and an exact block by block copy of
all data on the source drive will be created on the destination
drive. The operation may take a long time for large drives. A
progress indicator will be shown. When the clone is finished, you
will be returned to the Disk Utilities menu.
Blank disk
RescueBRU generates a list of hard drives. You are then prompted to
select the target drive for blanking from a menu. You will then be
asked to confirm your actions and all data on the target drive will
be overwritten with zeros. This will destroy the MBR, the partition
table, and any RAID signatures that may exist on the drive. Any data
that exists on the drive will not be recoverable. NOTE: This will
not satisfy the US DoD 5220.22-M standard and will not serve to
"declassify" a drive. If the drive contained classified data, it
will still need to be stored and controlled in accordance with the
highest classification it contained. When the blanking operation is
finished, you will be returned to the Disk Utilities menu.
Test disk for bad blocks
RescueBRU generates a list of hard drives. You are then prompted to
select the target drive for testing from a menu. You will also be
prompted whether you want to do a read-only test or a write/read
test. You will then be asked to confirm your actions and the test
will begin. If you have selected a read-only test, no alteration
will be made to any data on the drive.If you have selected a
write/read test, all data on the target drive will be overwritten by
various bit patterns, and finally with zeros. This will destroy the
MBR, the partition table, and any RAID signatures that may exist on
the drive. Any data that exists on the drive will not be
recoverable. NOTE: This will not satisfy the US DoD 5220.22-M
standard and will not serve to "declassify" a drive. If the drive
contained classified data, it will still need to be stored and
controlled in accordance with the highest classification it
contained. When the blanking operation is finished, you will be
returned to the Disk Utilities menu.
Setup backup media
If using the "Local" media type, media setup is not required. For
the RescueBRU utility to work,the backup images must be stored on
the backup media in a place where RescueBRU can find them. This
option creates the directory on the backup media where the images
will be stored. After selecting this option, RescueBRU mounts the
media, and then checks to see if the backup location already exists.
If it does, RescueBRU warns you that if you continue the setup, you
may lose old backups. You have the option of continuing anyway or
aborting media setup. When a backup is started, the media is checked
to see if it is set up and this function is automatically invoked if
it isn't. Consequently, you should never have to use this option.
This option is really only useful if you want to purge all existing
backups from the media.

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RescueBRU is the Rescue CD Backup & Restore Utility. It is a user
friendly interface to various programs on the System Rescue CD.
RescueBRU allows you to create backup images of nearly any PC, even
those on which the filesystems or partitioning schemes are
unsupported. In the event of data corruption or drive hardware
failure, you can restore the backup images to the original drive or
to a new drive of equal or greater capacity. After the restoration,
you just reboot and use the restored drive immediately. No flaky
Norton Ghost boot floppies. No Windows device configuration. No
device driver installation. No IP address or software configuration.
Less downtime.
Backup files are stored on an NFS server, a portable USB drive, or a
local directory. The general procedure is to run a backup to the
backup media using this custom System Rescue CD. When a drive needs
to be rebuilt, you can boot this CD on the bad machine and restore
directly from the NFS server or the USB drive. For details of how
this works, see the more specific help topics in the help menu.
When booting the RescueBRU CD, the RescueBRU boot page will appear.
If you are backing up or restoring a single machine, you can just
hit enter to continue booting. You can also backup or restore
multiple machines at once if you are using an NFS server as your
media type.
The Main Menu
The main menu gives you access to all functions of RescueBRU.
Option 1: Settings menu. Allows you to select which type of media to
use for backup or restore, the method used for backups, and the
action for the program to take after a successful operation.
Option 2: Do a backup. See the help for Doing a backup.
Option 3: Do a restore. See the help for Restoring from a backup.
Option 4: Disk Utilities. See the help for Disk Utilities.
Option 5: Image Management. Allows you to copy, rename or delete
images stored on the backup media.
Option 6: View logs or notes. Log files and notes are generated
during most operations of RescueBRU and may be saved with an image
when backups or restores are done. These files may be viewed using
this option.
Option 7: Show backups available on media.
Option H: Help. You know what this does, or you wouldn't be here.
Option S: Exit to shell or Exit and return to rbruserver. This will
exit the RescueBRU program and return you to the System Rescue CD
shell if you ran rescuebru directly from a shell prompt. If
rescuebru was called from the rbruserver program, you will be
returned to rbruserver.
Option R: Exit and reboot. Reboots the system.
Option P: Exit and power down. Powers down the system on systems
that support it. For systems that do not support APM or ACPI
poweroff, it halts the system.

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RescueBRU uses an NFS server, portable USB drive, or a local
directory to store backup images.
Showing backups available on media
Option 7 of the RescueBRU main menu (Show backups available on
media) does what the name implies. The available backups are listed
by name showing the date and time.
An important note about using the Local media type for backup/restore:
If you use the local media type, be aware that the drive designation
(sda, sdb, etc.) will very likely be different than what it is in
the machine the drive is to be used in. For example, if you back up
the drive using the NFS media type, the drive designation may be
sda. If you remove this drive and install it in a RescueBRU server
machine, it may get designated sdc. Attempting to restore it like
this may result in overwriting the server's image storage drive! The
rule of thumb is that the same media type must be used for both the
backup and the restore. If you back it up with NFS, restore it with
NFS. If you back it up with Local, restore it with Local.

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This determines what type of backup media will be used. The
following options are available:
NFS
Uses a server on the network to store backups, usually a RescueBRU
server, but it can be any NFS server. The most convenient type.
Multiple PCs can use this simultaneously. Space for backups is
limited only by the amount of storage on the server. This is the
default type.
USB
Uses a portable USB disk drive or thumb drive. No server required.
This is usually the slowest method.
Local
Uses a pre-mounted partition on the local machine. For expert use only.

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This determines how the backup is done. The following options are
available:
auto
Analyzes the partitions on the drive to determine the best of the
three methods described below. If the drive contains ext4, reiser4,
or btrfs partitions, fsarchiver will be used. If the drive contains
ext2, ext3, reiserfs, vfat, hpfs, jfs, xfs, ufs, hfs, or ntfs
partitions, partimage will be used. For any other partition type, or
if a drive doesn't contain any partitions, dd will be used.
This is the default.
partimage
Uses the partimage utility to make images of individual partitions.
Supports ext2, ext3, reiserfs, FAT16/32, HPFS, JFS, XFS, UFS, HFS,
and NTFS. Saves and restores the MBR(s) and partition table(s).
Recreates Linux swap partitions. Works for most configurations.
fsarchiver
Uses the fsarchiver utility to archive the files of a filesystem.
Supports ext2, ext3, reiserfs, XFS, JFS, ext4, reiser4, btrfs, and
NTFS. Saves and restores the MBR(s) and partition table(s).
Recreates Linux swap partitions. More tolerant of drive hardware
failures during backup. After restoring this type of backup, you may
have to reinstall your bootloader, since the restored system files
may not be in the same physical location on the disk. This method is
the fastest method during both backup and restore due to the
multithreaded compression/decompression.
dd
Uses the dd utility to create bit-by-bit images of entire hard
drives or partitions. Works for any disk drive with any filesystem
or no filesystem at all. The most reliable method. Also the slowest
method, and uses the most space for backups. Use for drives with LVM
partitions. If none of the other methods work, use this method.

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Option 3 of the RescueBRU main menu allows you to restore previously
backed up images. Make sure the drive you want to restore to is
installed in the PC before booting the System Rescue CD. After
selecting option 3, it first attempts to mount the backup media.
After detecting and mounting the backup media, a list of backups on
the media is shown. You are then prompted to enter the name of the
backup you wish to restore. After specifying the backup to restore,
RescueBRU determines what method was used to back up the PC.
You are asked which MBRs/drives and partitions you would like to
restore. After you have made your selections, a confirmation message
appears so that you can verify the choices and options. After
selecting Ok to confirm, the MBRs and partitions you have selected
will be restored.
When the restoration is complete, you are returned to the main menu,
where you can perform other operations or exit RescueBRU.