Jimsmithkka's questions

I have a standalone linux IDS system that I have been putting together. It runs MySQL locally, as well ntop, nagios, base, snort, apache etc. I want to be able to make a backup of the system that has everything from the old system so that I can do a quick dd from a static image of the system and then restore it to the last state.

To my knowledge I cannot DD a live system, which leaves me at a loss as to how to get everything from the server backed up.

I have never used rsync in the past, and I think it may be the solution, but I am not certain that I can use that on a live mysql DB.

I am pretty sure this is going to need a layered approach, but any input would be helpful.

edit:

The systems being monitored are low traffic most of the time, and apache is only for the web UIs for the applications, so its not as overloaded as it may seem

I am building an IDS box with a dedicated sniffer nic which should have no IP.
I can't seem to get the system to come up with no IP on the nic, it either uses DHCP or takes the same IP as the first NIC to come up (eth0 = normal, eth1 = sniffer).

I am a Linux user, I mainly use RedHatArc and ubuntu/debian. I want to start using Unix's for servers instead of Fed/Cent. I have tried but never successfully installed FreeBSD. I haven't tried NetBSD yet (DLing the ISO now), and have not gotten a copy of OpenBSD in my hands yet.

I was hoping to get some input from various Unix users here on the applicable differences with the free Unix's. Not so much the differences in the actually implementations, but more the best end uses for each one.

I have been wanting to experiment with Windows clustering systems in my spare time, so I need a free, preferably open source, iSCSI Target that can support 2k3 and 2k8 fail-over and possibly High availability clustering. I have tried the ubuntu iscsi target package in a vmware environment, but it fails at the 2k8 tests.

In simple terms I want to build a "Poor man's San" for windows and have it be able to do more than just be drives.