How to make a backup?

[kauczu]

Hi.

I want to test the HSDPA service on my router, but to be able to use a Huawei E220 modem I need to install another firmware supporting modems HSDPA, so my actually settings, services on router and hdd will be overwritten.

My question is: how to properly make a backup of all settings and services installed now on the hard drive connected to router so they will be work properly after the restore? Just in case if I want to go back to the Oleg firmware.

Once I tried to back up as follows: unplugged drive from the router, plugged to desktop pc, made Ghost image of entire disk. Unfortunately, after the image restoration some services has not been restored or does not work properly.

My configuration is:
- Asus wl500gP v.1
- Oleg's 1.9.2.7-10
- hdd 200GB connected via usb of course

Please give me some advice

[raas]

Hi kauczu,

Do you have multiple partitions on that disk? (1 for /opt, 1 for swap, 1 for /tmp/harddiks)

if so, a backup can be easily made by:


make sure none off the services are running..
(prevent services from starting up by uncommenting the line in the post-boot file)

like this (in your /usr/local/sbin/post-boot file)

# Run all active services - active means starts with S
#/opt/etc/init.d/rc.unslung

then flash it, and reboot.

flashfs save && flashfs commit && flashfs enable && reboot

after the reboot you will be able to login in with telnet/putty.

then run the following command: (which makes a *.tar.gz file of the /opt contents)

tar -cvzf /tmp/harddisk/opt.tar.gz /opt

(replace /tmp/harddisk to the mounting point you have mounted your data partition to)

full procedure can be read here: http://www.wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12812
(procedure also has the code to restore the opt.tar.gz file to the /opt partition)

HTH

[Wix]

Hi Raas,

Newbie to openwrt based systems and to linux in general. I have a WL-500gp with kamikaze 2.4 installed. System is up and running with my selected packages. Also, have a usb memory stick (2g) on this system, formated bootable.

Want to make a clone of this package in the event I need to reinstall. Would appreciate you taking the time to outline a procedure to back-up this package and to reinstall.....

Thx !! Wix

[raas]

Hi,

i've only experience with oleg's firmware,

but if you can open a telnet/putty session I suppose it is almost the same (provided that tar is installed in kamikaze, I don't know)

[kauczu]

Thanks raas for express anwser.

/opt backup went ok, but i can't find info in your topic here: http://www.wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12812 about how to restore already created archive.

I am sure this is so simple, but i don't know how to do it.

Please help.

[raas]

Hi kauczu,

The part about how to restore the created archive is a bit further down, but here it is.

(first you go to the root of the system an tell to extract there, because the archive was created of /opt, it will extract to /opt)

cd /
tar -xvzf /mnt/opt.tar.gz

(where opt.tar.gz is the name of the archive)

HTH

[Tamadite]

You can fully ghost your HD onto another one by running:

dd if=[source] of=[target]

To identify source and target you can run:

fdisk -l

l like in "lion"

For instace:

 dd if=/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc of=/dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/disc

dd will copy the source bit by bit into the target. Notice that I'm copying the entire device, including all partitions.

You can use drives with different sizes as long as target is bigger than source.

[BrandonSk]

...
after the reboot you will be able to login in with telnet/putty.

then run the following command: (which makes a *.tar.gz file of the /opt contents)

tar -cvzf /tmp/harddisk/opt.tar.gz /opt

(replace /tmp/harddisk to the mounting point you have mounted your data partition to)

full procedure can be read here: http://www.wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=12812
(procedure also has the code to restore the opt.tar.gz file to the /opt partition)

HTH

Hello,

I followed the instructions listed here but after some time I received this error:
gzip: short write
tar: write error: Broken pipe

Although I am a beginner in linux I thought this may be related to lack of space. So I ran the same command with a path pointing to my 500GB HDD with lots of free space, but the error appeared again.

Questions:
1) Any ideas what may be causing the error and how to fix it?
2) Is this back-up procedure still valid? (I need to restore original firmware for some time. After that, I'd like to go back to Oleg's. If I save CFG and Flashfs from web interface and provided that the ext. HDD with all the firmware's partitions, programs and data remains untouched, is my assuption correct that flashing Oleg back, restoring configuration and reconnecting the HDD would give me the same working set-up I have now?)

Thanks a lot for your answers.
Cheers,
Brano.