Re: [Fed-Talk] Server restore woes
Re: [Fed-Talk] Server restore woes
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Server restore woes
- From: Jeffrey Compton <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:21:48 -0400
David,
As far as I understand things, it is expected behavior for ASR not to
be able to do a block-level restore to a software raid.
But you should be able to do a file-level restore.
You should be able to rescan your disk image with --
sudo asr imagescan --source </path/to/your/dmg> --filechecksum --
nostream
(This may take a while.)
"--filechecksum will calculate/store checksum information required to
perform file copy restores."
Then, rebuild your raid set, and restore with --
sudo asr restore --source </path/to/your/dmg> --target /Volumes/<your-
raid-vol>
Notice - do not need to use the "--erase" option here since you are
doing a file-level restore.
Hope this helps.
On Mar 16, 2009, at 10:30 AM, David Emery wrote:
I've been having a lot of problems (HW and SW) with my G5 that's
running Leopard Server. I thought I'd share my experiences to date.
The biggest surprise in all this so far has been that you cannot
create a disk image of a single drive (in Disk Utility) and then use
that to restore the contents to a RAID set. (In fact I crashed Disk
Utility at one point trying to do this.)
The guy at the Apple store basically said "strip to Apple
components only, re-install the OS and then add stuff."
So that's what I've been doing.
1. removed all the 3rd-party RAM, all the cards, was able to
reinstall OS X client on a single drive.
2. added eSATA card, reloaded drivers, was able to mount the
eSATA drives.
3. tried to restore OS X Server from my backups, did not work.
4. tried to reload OS X Server from install disks, it said "not
enough RAM"
5. added back my 2gb of OWC RAM (machine has 512mb of Apple RAM)
6. Then did a clean install of OS X Server onto the internal
drive.
7. That booted, so I rebooted back to the Client install, and
then did a disk synk to restore OS X server settings, applications,
prefs, etc. That was a risk, but it worked.
8. Backed up the server partition (using "create image of disk
drive" from Disk Utility)
9. Then I wanted to RAID the 2 drives on the Apple motherboard
SATA controller. Unfortunately, the restore-from-image -FAILED-,
but it did warn me. You cannot 'image' a single drive and then
restore that image to a RAID set using Disk Utilities. (That was a
very unpleasant surprise!)
10. Instead, I used synk again to restore the OS X Server to the
RAID drive. This time (unlike step 3), it worked.
Now I'm re-imaging the OS X Server drive, and when that's done (it
takes a long time), I'll restore more files to both the internal
drive (RAID Mirrored, will hold OS X Server and home directories)
and the eSATA external drive (will be set up RAID Mirrored, and
will hold photos, household data and other stuff for retention.)
The cause of the problems were hardware glitches. At first I
thought they were RAM-related, but now I'm suspecting the internal
SATA card I had in the machine (along with 2 extra drives.) I've
removed that card and the 2 drives, and placed the drives in an
external enclosure. I still think I'll replace this big G5 with a
nice small Mini at some point, although it will be a shame to give
up the eSATA card and eSATA-only disk enclosure. The hint that
future Minis might support eSATA definitely got my attention, that
would be Very Nice!
One other point: When I did that clean install of Leopard Server
(step 4), I did the usual 'install from DVD, then run Software
Update'. After I did that, I noticed a "Server Settings" app in the
Dock, and that aligns with the server first-run questions I got when
I rebooted. This makes me wonder if Apple is preparing a 'Server
Lite', which is somethig I have long advocated for SOHO use like
mine. In particular, 'server lite' did not prompt me to configure
DNS, but it also didn't appear to support LDAP or mobile accounts.
That's a mistake in my view; the primary justification I used (to
myself :-) for OS X Server was LDAP and network accounts. Now that
they're working OK (but not great), I'm a big fan of mobile accounts.
However, given the problems I've had with OS X Server (both with
these hardware issues on the G5 and the general problems configuring
it), I think I should have compromised and just bought a big FW800
disk enclosure to hang off of one machine and set it up for Time
Machine backups across the network. I'm also running Tiger Server
to handle external facing websites on another (G4/933) machine, that
setup has given me -no problems- (except for the time when one
channel in an extra IDE controller card went and took out 1 drive of
a RAID set, but RAID saved my body parts there!)
dave
--
David Emery, DSCI, supporting PdM FCS (BCT) SW Integration
703 298 3473 (office/cell), 703 272 7496 (fax)
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Jeffrey Compton
Senior Macintosh Systems Administrator
SAIC Contractor
Apple Certified Systems Administrator
Apple Certified Technician, Xsan for Pro Video
Qlogic Certified Technical Professional
Walter Reed Army Medical Center/DOIM
6900 Georgia Ave
Building 83
Washington, DC 20307
202-356-1012
Ext. 40927
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