I have been searching for a backup tool that would allow me to create a bootable copy of the Ubuntu 18.04 Server (or higher) operating system image that is installed on any of my machines.
I come from an IBM AIX background. On that platform, there are a couple of tools that can be used (mksysb, mkdvd) that allow you to generate an image of the O/S and the way it is currently configured. In the event of a DR situation, you are able to slip the DVD into the drive, boot the system, and it will go ahead and re-install exactly as it was at the time the backup was made. These are HOT backups. You do not need to have the users logged off.
In Ubuntu, what I found so far was that there is no easy solution to generate an ISO of how the system is installed at this moment. Most open-source packages I found require that the server be rebooted into some sort of maintenance mode to be able to create the media needed. On a production server, that means getting all other users off and/or shutting down over a weekend, provided the system is not used 24/7.
Does anyone have a routine or a product they use to back up just the Ubuntu operating system, in a manner that can be restored back to the way it was? I mean not having to recreate users and passwords, keep any printers that have been defined, save the netplan, hosts, services files, etc.
Our servers are all installed with the O/S on one RAID-1 set of disks (rootvg), and any databases installed in a separate RAID-5 array on a separate volume group (datavg), if that helps. The idea being that we can re-install or upgrade the Ubuntu on rootvg without affecting the data in the other volume group (s).
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