Backup server
Alright, Linux newbie here. Been messing around with computers for a while now, PC/Windows tech for a living, but never touched Linux.
Now, I need to build a backup server to store client disk images, and I decided to use it as my platform to get into Linux (the other option is to use Win2K with Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition, which, um, cost a good deal of money).
I need a solution that will let me make a live CD compatible with a bunch of various network cards to boot the client systems from, dump the hard drive image onto server or restore it from server, then boot the client back without actually installing anything. An option to extract single files from image is a nice bonus.
Any tips/pointers? Am I being too ambitious, should I maybe start with something simpler?
Edit: thinking about it, server-side, a Samba server would be plenty good enough. What I need to do, is when a system comes in, make a full drive image of it so that if I screw something up while trying to fix it, I can always go back to square one and start over, armed with knowledge of what doesn't work. It's the client-side portion I have problems with - I could use Ghost I suppose, but it's a real pain with network card drivers, and many modern cards don't have DOS drivers at all.
Now, I need to build a backup server to store client disk images, and I decided to use it as my platform to get into Linux (the other option is to use Win2K with Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition, which, um, cost a good deal of money).
I need a solution that will let me make a live CD compatible with a bunch of various network cards to boot the client systems from, dump the hard drive image onto server or restore it from server, then boot the client back without actually installing anything. An option to extract single files from image is a nice bonus.
Any tips/pointers? Am I being too ambitious, should I maybe start with something simpler?
Edit: thinking about it, server-side, a Samba server would be plenty good enough. What I need to do, is when a system comes in, make a full drive image of it so that if I screw something up while trying to fix it, I can always go back to square one and start over, armed with knowledge of what doesn't work. It's the client-side portion I have problems with - I could use Ghost I suppose, but it's a real pain with network card drivers, and many modern cards don't have DOS drivers at all.
