Mephisto Backup
________________________
What is Mephisto Backup?
This program can do simple backups and syncs over a network or locally.It uses tar and rsync in the background. Mephisto Backup was made with the Java programming language. The key feature of this program is the ability to backup your system to an image and copy it to a Linux Live DVD for future restoration. The user can then take that cd and move his or her system to any PC.
Features:
1. Backup your operating system to a Live CD.
2. Restore your OS from the Mephisto Live CD. The live CD is used by Mephisto Backup to Restore your system only.
3. Displays the size of your backup ISO and TAR file after each backup job is ran.
4. Blank DVD-RW’s.
5. Sync between locations and save backup configurations.
6. Burn the backup image to the live cd within the program.
7. Backup Schedules.
Sourceforge Project URL: Here
Google Code URL: Here
________________________
[NEWS]
11/6/2009
Mephisto Backup v1.9 Released!
Feature List:
Automatically generates a new initrd image and installs the boot loader.
Added support for Fedora 12’s new initrd tool called “Dracut”.
Minor bug fixes.
________________________
11/2/2009
Mephisto v1.9 will be released shortly after Fedora 12.
Reason: Fedora 12 will use a new tool called dracut to generate initrd images.
Restore CD will no longer load Mephisto by Default. To launch
Mephisto from the Gentoo Live DISC, type /mnt/cdrom/mephisto.
LiveCD mephistobackup16.iso is going to be replaced by mephistobackup19.iso .
Special CentOS restore discs no longer being made.
_______________________
8/24/2009
Attention RHEL/CENTOS users:
A bug was found in the restore disc has been fixed in Mephistobackup 1.8.1. A new ISO has been created so that enterprise users can restore their system.MephistoBackup will download the correct ISO for you. The RHEL/CENTOS iso is 64-bit only.
ISO location:
http://rusher.webhop.org/Projects/mephistobackup-rhel-64.iso
________________________
8/13/2009
Mephisto v1.8 released!
Check it out and let me know how it works!
Features:
UUID support.
GUI.
With the added UUID support, users will not have to modify /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.list to perform their backups. When creating a live CD, MephistoBackup will scan the existing UUID and assign the label/UUID to the disk when restoring a system.
MephistoBackup has a new developer that has already made some improvments to the code and is currently working on the GUI. Welcome Alexis Fluteaux to the project!
64-bit restore disc so that users can backup/restore 64-bit operating systems.
To play with the GUI, please type the following in a terminal:
java -jar mephistobackup18.jar gui
________________________
Why the re-imaging section of the program will *NOT* work for you:
1. Your using LVM.
2. Your using UUID instead of the traditional naming scheme: /dev/sdX (Mephisto v1.8+ solved this issue)
(Simply modify /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst to solve this problem. Mephisto should search for this)
3. The root partition is not /dev/sda1. Mephisto Backup v1.6+ solved this problem.
4. Your using a different filesystem than ext2, ext3, or xfs.
(Code can be changed in 1 second to support the rest.)
5. Your not using Arch Linux, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu or basically an operating system that uses something else besides mkinitcpio, mkinitrd, or mkinitramfs to generate a kernel initrd image.
6. You have old kernels and initrd images in /boot. Please remove them before backing up your system and creating a live cd.
(Mephisto v1.5+ scans for multiple initrd’s and warns the user)
________________________
[About the Live CD]
The Live CD is a modified Gentoo minimal install disc. When the disc is finished booting, the Mephisto Backup restore process will begin automatically.
The MephistoBackup v1.9 Live CD does not automatically load Mephisto Backup any longer. Simply type : /mnt/cdrom/mephisto.
________________________
[RELEASES]
________________________
Mephisto Backup 1.9 links:
1. Mephisto 1.9 (Java Included, 33.9MB)
How to run: unzip, cd into the folder, ./mephistobackup
2. Download 1.9a (You must have Java installed for this link)
How to run: java -jar mephisto19a/dist/*.jar
Mephisto Backup 1.8.1 links:
1. Mephisto 1.8 (Java Included, 33.9MB)
How to run: unzip, cd into the folder, ./mephistobackup
2. Download 1.8 (You must have Java installed for this link)
How to run: java -jar mephisto18/dist/*.jar
The 64-bit restore cd is slight different from the 32-bit cd. The 32-bit CD will run MephistoBackup automatically. To launch MephistoBackup from the 64-bit recovery disc, type /mnt/cdrom/mephistobackup/mephistobackup .
________________________
[GUIDES]
How do I re-image a machine with Mephisto 1.2 and up?
1) Create your backup configuration with option 2 from the main menu.
2) Load your configuration with option 1 from the main menu.
3) When backup is complete, run option 10 from the main menu.
4) Burn the iso to a disc.
5) Reboot and it should work.
_______________________
[X does not work after I re-image!]
________________________
Ofcourse, you have to reconfigure X. Here is how you do it:
Step 1:
init 3 or……
/etc/init.d/gdm stop or….
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
Step 2:
X -configure
Step 3:
mv xorg.conf.new xorg.conf
Step 4:
mv xorg.conf /etc/X11
Step 5:
Reboot.
________________________
How to use the Redhat/CentOS restore disc:
1. Download the Rhel/CentOS ISO from the website or use MephistoBackup to download the iso.
2. Backup your system.
3. Create the live disc.
4. Boot from the live disc.
5. At the boot prompt, type “linux rescue” then enter
6. Press enter and configure your network until you get to the console.
7. Type:
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom
cd /mnt/cdrom/mephistobackup
bash mephistobackup
________________________
How do I re-image a machine manually?
(Mephisto Backup 1.2 does everything for you below. )
1. Add your backup file to a live cd using isomaster.
(Mephisto Backup 1.1 does this for you)
2. Boot the live cd.
3. Format your partitions.
4. mount and extract the backup file.
5. mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
chroot /mnt
6. Use mkinitrd or mkinitramfs to generate a fresh initrd image
7. grub-install /dev/sda
