sarnold	our next lecture is given by hugo rabson, the lead developer of the mondo backup software
hugo	Good afternoon/evening, everyone. Thank you for coming.
hugo	In late 1999, I was running a small computer store in Nashville, Tennessee in the USA.
hugo	My boss needed me to rip off Microsoft & the existing tools wouldn't do the job.
hugo	So, I wrote Mondo. He then told me to halt the project; he fired me on a trumped-up charge; ... brb, door :) lol
hugo	Back. Sorry about that.
hugo	Anyway, 2 years & 3 additional developers later, Mondo is still here.
hugo	I've been divorced once, I'm about to re-marry, and my old boss is being prosecuted by the INS and the IRS.
hugo	Mondo is a disaster recovery tool. It can backup your files to CD, tape or online filesystem (e.g. hard disk, NFS share).
hugo	The goal from the beginning was and to this day is to make it extremely simple for a user of a workstation or low-end server to backup his/her computer to removable media (or NFS share).
hugo	Not only that, it was supposed to be equally simpel for the user to restore absolutely everything, including the OS, to a blank, unformatted computer if necessary.
hugo	<jmgv> does it work with xfs?
hugo	<hugo> If your kernel supports it, Mondo supports it.
hugo	The design of Mondo was very much 'ad hoc'. I didn't sit down & plan it from the ground up. It evolved.
hugo	For instance, it began as a 2000-line shell script which was ported on two long weekends to C.
hugo	It is as stable as it is _because_ it is Open Source.
hugo	Mondo is my baby :) but it is also proof positive that an Open Source backup program - especially one designed for disaster recovery - is superior to a Closed Source program, at least potentially
hugo	because the ideology translates to a more sane development model in this field.
hugo	As you know, each Linux distribution has its own eccentricities.
hugo	I'll discuss them in a moment.
hugo	First, consider what would happen if, for example, Mondo were Closed Source and ran perfectly on Red Hat systems.
hugo	What if you invent a new Linux distribution? If Mondo doesn't work on it, what can you do? Nothing.
hugo	You could mail me a copy of your distribution & hope I'll help... but what if I'm busy or unhelpful? Tough.
hugo	What if you are using LVM and I don't have your LVM setup?
hugo	What if you are using RAID and I don't have your SCSI RAID card?
hugo	What if you are using a Compaq ProLiant, which does various funky things to the partition table?
hugo	Mondo isn't an electronic card game. It has to run perfectly, each time, every time, or it is worthless.
hugo	It is utterly worthless to you unless it runs properly on your computer.
hugo	Seeing as I don't _own_ your computer, I can't say anything but "It works for me" if Mondo is Closed Source and you have a problem.
hugo	So, even though in theory I could make more money by closing the source, in practice the very act of closing the source would stop development dead
hugo	because users would not be able to fix anything.
hugo	This is the case with all software but it is most obvious with mission-critical software.
hugo	Now, here are some examples of the differences between the Linux distributions
hugo	- Debian has cramfs in its kernel, which causes problems with non-Debian boot disks; it does not install gawk by default (a minor gripe)
hugo	- Gentoo uses a kinky variant of relative symbolic links in its devfs-enabled kerne,l
hugo	- Mandrake stores its syslinux.bin (boot floppy loader) binary in one place; Red Hat in another; SuSE in yet another
hugo	- Mandrake's syslinux RPM includes isolinux; Red Hat's syslinux RPM does not (or is it the other way round?)
ender	and Gentoo urges uses to not mount their /boot directory, making it difficult to grab kernel images for boot disks.
hugo	You get the idea. Each of these eccentricities must be allowed for in a decent disaster ercovery application's code.
hugo	Right :)
hugo	and Mandrake leaves the CD supermounted - permanently
hugo	so if you're not careful, you accidentally backup your Peter Gabriel enhanced CD :)
hugo	Now, if Mondo were Closed and a new distro came out, you couldn't make Mondo compatible. Mondo would always be playing catch-up
hugo	Whereas, by keeping the source Open, the developers can ask every user to be the eyes and ears of the team
hugo	to find & help fix any bugs which are really the result of eccentricities in their distribution.
hugo	(although usually just find, which is fine)
hugo	I've told you a little bit about the technical reasons why Mondo _has_ to be Open Source (indeed, _any_ good backup program has to be Open Source). Now, let's look at what Mondo actually does.
hugo	(1) Mondo analyzes your partition table. (2) It generates a boot disk set, from your kernel and modules and utilities. (3) It writes all your files to the storage media. (4) If you have a disaster, Mondo will let you restore everything from scratch using the boot disks and the backup media.
hugo	Every good backup utility does #3.
hugo	Some tools do #2.
hugo	It was important to combine all funtionality in one software suite, otherwise it could not be called 'easy to use'.
hugo	If you type 'mondoarchive', you will be asked a few basic questions.
hugo	What type of storage media do you want to use?
hugo	Do you have a sane kernel (say 'no' if Debian or Gentoo)
hugo	Do you want to backup everything? If not, what do you want to backup (e.g. /home, /usr/local, ...)
hugo	What do you want to exclude (e.g. /home/incriminating-evidence)
hugo	Finally, it runs. :) That's about it. It is that simple. That's why it's so good. It's not technically brilliant, it's not amazingly well-written... It's just very easy to use, it works reliably, and it has lots and lots of checksums so that you may have confidence in its archives.
hugo	<ShawnWerk> hugo: how does it know what files to backup based on distribution? and the directories? or does it look for common release files (like redhat's /etc/redhat-release and then generate a list?)
hugo	<ender> ShawnWerk: It backs up absolutely everthing, except for /proc, /tmp, /mnt/floppy*, /mnt/cdrom*
hugo	<ShawnWerk> does mondo allow for easy searching of files of a backup?
hugo	<ender> not at this time.
hugo	<ender> it is on our TODO list for easier restores.  Our main focus was disaster recovery, where you are recovering the entire file system.
hugo	When you boot from the CD (or floppy, if you are a tape user), mondo asks you:-
hugo	- what is your storage media? (tape, CD, ...)
hugo	- do you want to nuke your computer or restore interactively?
hugo	It proceeds from there.
hugo	'Nuke' means 'repartition your drives, wipe them, reformat them, restore everything from storage media'.
hugo	Apologies to anyone who finds 'nuke' offensive. :) Please e-mail the mailing list if you have a better name. :)
hugo	'Interactive' means Mondo asks you _before_ it partitions, formats, or restores anything. It also lets you choose exactly which files to restore, and where to restore them to.
hugo	As I explained earlier, the #1 goal is simplicity. Stability is persumed: it's no use to you unless it is stable. However, we wanted it to be very, very easy to use.
hugo	<ShawnWerk> does mondo compress the data better then cpio? and does it help me determine if the device im backing up to supports hardware compression (this one does but Linux doesn't seem to let me use it?)
hugo	<ender> ShawnWerk: Mondo either uses bzip2 or LZOP for compression.  Bzip2 takes a compression ratio argument, 0-9.  0 being little to no compression, 9 being the highest compression.
hugo	<amd> could anyone explain me the term 'sane kernel'?
hugo	<ender> amd: Sane, as in it doesn't use cramfs, has ramfs support, has loopback support, and a couple other things which every sane distro should have.
hugo	Has anyone here used TOMSRTBT? I bet you have used something similar.
hugo	You want a boot disk for emergencies, one which is compatible with your hardware and filesystems formats.
hugo	TOMSRTBT is a generic, one-size-fits-all boot disk. So is Trinux, Green Frog Linux, ...
hugo	There are others.
hugo	Mondo uses a tool I wrote while I was getting divorced, which is why the code is a bit of a mess. :) It is called Mindi.
hugo	It uses BusyBox (by Erik Anderson) to provide dd, cat, ls, gzip, mv, cp, and the other simple binaries which you need from time to time.
hugo	It uses _your_ kernel and modules to build a boot disk with the BusyBox ramdisk.
hugo	If your data will not fit on one floppy then Mindi spreads it over 3, 4, even 5 floppies.
hugo	So, when you boot from a Mindi boot disk and data disks,
ender	(your kernel, or a failsafe kernel, if your kernel isn't quite sane)
hugo	you get _your_ kernel, _your_ fdisk, _your_ modules, etc.
hugo	ender: *nods* *nods* :-)
hugo	If your kernel is insane (see above *g*) then you may use a failsafe kernel. Usually, only Debian users need the failsafe kernel.
hugo	Mondo relies on Mindi if you encounter a disaster which renders your PC unbootable.
hugo	So, first, Mondo runs Mindi to generate an emergency boot disk set for your computer. You may use these boot disks with any Mondo backup media (in theory). The boot media are not tied to the backup media.
hugo	The boot disks include all the information Mondo needs, to format your drives, to access your tape / CD, etc.
hugo	Then, Mondo archives all your files to media. It does this by calling afio repeatedly. I chose afio because tar... was unreliable. Very unreliable. Please believe me. For large filesystems, tar is not the right tool for the job.
hugo	I tested every backup engine I could find - afio, tar, star, cpio, others too - and only afio behaved perfectly. Afio is superior to tar in many ways, the most important of which is that it compresses each file individually. Tar compresses all files at once, which means one bad block could affect all files. In afio, one bad block usually only affects one compressed file.
hugo	Mondo compresses the files in 5 megabyte 'lists'. In other words, it takes 5 megabytes of files and compresses them; then, another five emgabytes; then another. :) So, each CD will have 100+ afio archives on it. That is in case you hit a bad sector on a CD. It will only affect one afio archive. The others will probably be unaffected. It is one more way that Mondo strives to protect your data from disaster.
hugo	The same is true of tape backups - only that is a bit more thorough. Each afio archive is framed by a start block and an end block, with a 32-bit checksum of the archive. Afio has its own per-file checksums, too. Finally, every 32K written to the tape is surrounded by a simple 4-byte checksum. So, each file is covered by 3 or more layers of checksums.
hugo	Each CD is prepared in a directory. When the directory is full (600MB or so), the contents are sent to mkisofs, which sends its stream to cdrecord, which burns a CD.
hugo	The first CD of the set is bootable. It also contains the boot and data floppy images. So, if you cannot make your PC boot from your CD, you may copy the boot disk and data disk images to physical floppies and boot from those.
hugo	The tape is handled differently. The archives come in from the two threads which generate the afio archives in the background.
hugo	Another thread writes the data to tape.
hugo	When the tape runs out, the user is prompted for another tape. The last block, the one not completely written to the first tape, will now be written to the second tape in its entirety. Then the rest of the data will continue to be written to the tape.
hugo	(The first 32MB of tape 1 contains the data disks in a tarball. So, you may boot from one floppy, insert your tape, and do a complete restore without using any additional floppies.)
hugo	The buffering came from the 'buffer' tool, written nearly 10 years ago. It still works. :)
hugo	Mondo also allows you to backup and restore to/from an NFS share. This is not as good as afbackup or amanda or other network-friendly backup systems.
hugo	Mondo's network support is weak and must be improved over time, or it will not be able to compete with other, Closed Source programs.
hugo	If you tell Mondo where your NFS share is mounted, it will handle the rest. It will mount it when you boot from the emergency floppies, will restore your data from it, and will unmount it.
hugo	It is as if the NFS share were just a hard disk partition.
hugo	By the way, some kernels are too big for the boot floppies. Mondo's boot floppy is a 1.72MB disk image and will hold up to a 1.2MB kernel image comfortably, in theory.
hugo	However, if your kernel or modules are too big for one floppy then you may use the CD image which Mondo also creates, for tape and NFS users.
hugo	Now, as I said, Mondo is designed for disaster recovery.
hugo	It has some rough edges, simply because it was not designed to be a regular backup program.
hugo	So, a lot of areas did not receive attention... which on other programs _did_ receive attention. :)
hugo	For instance, Mondo only recently was given the ability to restore to a live filesystem (that means you don't have to reboot to restore files).
hugo	Yes, it is a pity it didn't have that ability sooner. :) After all, users expect that. However, remember, it was not designed to be used on PC's which could boot. ;)
hugo	However, just type 'mondorestore' without rebooting and you'll be able to pick your media (tape, CD, whatever) and restore files.
hugo	The fun part is nuke-restoring
hugo	because your heart is in your mouth as you wonder whether all the data will be restored properly, will your partitions be formatted properly, will Mondo understand your RAID setup, etc.
hugo	Even if it makes a mistake during formatting, you can always drop to the shell prompt
hugo	and do it manually.
hugo	mkfs, fdisk, ... :)
hugo	It is laborious but at least you have that option.
hugo	Now, for the weaknesses.....
hugo	1. It does not run on any non-Linux OSes, including *BSD, Solarix, HP-UX.
hugo	It _could_ :) very easily. However, no-one has developed MIndi in those directions.
hugo	You see, Mondo is very sensible & stays out of any system-specific stuff. It leaves that to Mindi.
hugo	Mindi needs to understand how your kernel boots, etc.
hugo	It doesn't know how FreeBSD works because _I_ don't know how FreeBSD works. :) However, Mindi is just a 2000-line shell script.
hugo	<sarnold> so putting together a bindi for the bsds, or sindy for solaris, etc would do the job?
hugo	<ender> sarnold: quite possibly.
hugo	It's a bit like LILO / SILO / MILO.
hugo	2. Mondo does not handle NTFS natively.
hugo	It does take a disk image, byte for byte, which is _very_ expensive in terms of data storage.
hugo	Partimage does something much more elegant: it analyzes the disk structures and only stores the _used_ sectors.
hugo	Mondo doesn't do that.
hugo	3. Mondo does not handle Windows-only systems.
hugo	It used to. However, I have decided to remove the functionality to avoid possible legal action. (If you want more information on the legal action or the Windows-only support, please contact me.)
hugo	There was a time when you could boot your Windows PC from a customized Mondo CD, backup the whole thing to CD's or tape, and then restore to another PC.
hugo	This of course would allow you to clone any Windows PC.
hugo	That was why Mondo was originally written - to engage in wholesale copyright infringement.
ender	Pardon me, I need to step out for a 1/2 hour meeting.  Hugo will have to handle the ?'s until I return.
hugo	That was the design remit.
hugo	However, my boss and I parted company and I got an attack of conscience. :)
hugo	4. Mondo does not put a serial number on each media.
hugo	Yes, CD 2 is CD 2, tape 3 is tape 3, but if you mix tape 3 of last week's backup with tape 2 of this week's then the results are.. undefined. :)
hugo	5. Mondo does not have a pretty GUI.
hugo	It uses ncurses and newt.
hugo	It shows up in an 80x25 window.
hugo	It does not use Gtk or Qt or even Motif.
hugo	It will soon :) but it doesn't, yet.
hugo	6. Mondo does not always handle your RAID or LVM partitions properly.
hugo	There is such a range of layouts,
hugo	how could it always get it right? :)
hugo	*pauses*
hugo	<ender> Personally, I use cron to make backups and shuffle backup files.  I use NFS, so I shuffle the iso files on the NFS server to keep an archive.
hugo	<ender> Since restores usually require a machine reboot, there isn't a good way to "automate" that.
hugo	<ender> If "nuke" is called from the mindi boot process, It will automagically repartition the disks it finds, restore the data, and re-run the boot loader.  I suppose that is automated in a sense.
hugo	7. Mondo does not automatically migrate you from old hardware to new, when you backup an IDE-based computer and restore to a SCSI-based computer, for example.
hugo	8 - and this is the most important one -
hugo	If your pthreads library (part of glibc) is buggy...
hugo	Mondo will NOT WORK properly.
hugo	It will malfunction if you are a tape user.
hugo	If you are a CD user, it will probably run fine.
hugo	However, Mandrake 9.0, SuSE 8.1 and various other Linux distributions come with buggy glibc libraries.
hugo	Red Hat 8.0 somehow escaped the carnage.
hugo	Red Hat 7.x, Mandrake 8.x, SuSE 7.x are unaffected.
hugo	9. If your newt library is buggy, Mondo will segfault. This affects SuSE 7.x, SuSE 8.0.
hugo	I don't know why but Mondo is very good at revealing bugs in your distribution.
hugo	It is embarrassing because everyone blames Mondo first :) and then, when I explain for the 100th time that it's a bug in their libraries (and it's in the FAQ), I feel as if I'm just hiding Mondo's weaknesses. However, I've tried Mondo on a variety of Linux distributions, the source code is there for all to see, so if there's a bug, let's find it. :)
hugo	10. It does not like Debian's kernel.
hugo	Cramfs in the kernel? Ugh. Don't even go there. ;)
hugo	Now, let's look at some practical applications of Mondo, besides backing up your computer per se.
hugo	1. Easy deployment of a customized Linux distro or configuration.
hugo	Just customize one workstation just the way you like it; back it up to CD; boot each destination PC from the CD, one at a time; install everything. :) Quicker than Red Hat's kickstart.
hugo	Mondo also supports a 'post-nuke' tarball containing any binaries or scripts you like.
hugo	Specify it when you backup. It will back it up as well as everything else; then, after restoring, it will call 'post-nuke'. Your script/binary may configure the IP address, hostname, whatever you like.
hugo	2. Security
hugo	Backup /root, /boot, /usr/sbin, /sbin, etc.
hugo	Compare them, if you are worried your system has been compromised.
hugo	In fact, you could add tripwire to the list of binaries that live on the boot CD.
hugo	Then you could compare all checksums against a read-only database.
hugo	3. Try your software on lots of Linux distributions
hugo	I do this. :) I've made several rescue CD's, one per distribution. Red Hat 7.3, Mandrake 9.0, Mandrake 8.2, Red Hat 8.0,... you get the idea.
hugo	Wipe & restore your system. Make it Red Hat 8.0; then try your software on RH8.0
hugo	Do the same for RH7.3
hugo	My computer isn't fast enough for vmware... :)
hugo	This way, I can test my software on multiple distributions in a day, very easily.
hugo	I am coming to the end of the presentation.
hugo	Mondo is, as you see, _not_ all things to all men.
hugo	It is not very network-friendly. It is not ideal if you run a large network or have lots of Windows clients.
hugo	It could be enhanced to do almost anything
hugo	but at the moment, its speciality
hugo	is backing up single workstations or low-end servers... perfectly
hugo	and making it easy to restore to your existing hardware or even new hardware
hugo	in the event that you lose data or hardware or both.
hugo	It does other things too... but by focusing on our core skills and on one specific area of the Open Source software market,
hugo	the developers have come up with a robust, high-quality solution to a problem which faces all of us.
hugo	How the **** do we backup our data, _and_ restore it easily?
hugo	The developers are:- Hugo Rabson, Jesse Keating, Stan Benoit, Mikael Hultgren (documentation), Hector Alvarez (Debian development & packaging).
hugo	I am awaiting my work permit in America with my American fiancee, which means I am not allowed to work for money :) but I am allowed to work full-time on Mondo. (Who's going to stop me? *g*)
hugo	Jesse works for a large computer company.
hugo	Stan used to work in the I.T. Dept of a large hospital but is now doing something terribly clever & I can't remember what it is - sorry, Stan :)
hugo	Mikael is the documentation guy. He's outstanding.
hugo	Hector puts up with my anti-Debian and still manages to roll excellent Debian packages.
hugo	Mondo has been around on the Net since February 18th, 2000.
hugo	We hope to keep pushing it forward until it is the #1 Open Source backup/recovery program for Linux, eventually branching out into FreeBSD and perhaps Solaris and HP-UX... perhaps even non-Intel architectures.
hugo	That concludes the presentation.
sarnold	(well, the english version anyway :)
hugo	lol
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casanegra	Exelente!
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sarnold	hugo: thanks :)
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MJesus	congratulations !!
hugo	sarnold: It was a pleasure, believe me
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MJesus	this a pleasure is for us !
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casanegra	viva hugo!!
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casanegra	viva hugo!!
casanegra	viva hugo!!
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MJesus	thak you very much hugo !
hugo	You're very welcome. It was a pleasure to present to you.
vance	hugo: nice presentation :)
MJesus	Thanks !!! all you are excellent !
MJesus	the Spanish  traslation on live is making  by Arador and cha0z
burner	nice nice nice :)
casanegra	<abraar> hugo: Have you asked distribution makers to include mondo in popular distros?
hugo	*claps for arador and cha0z, who are doing a great job*
casanegra	:-)
hugo	abraar: Yes. Mandrake 8.1 and 8.2 included Mondo on their 'supplemental' CD (that was CD #3). Mandrake now has an alliance with Arkeia, so I don't know if they'll continue to include Mondo. However, Mandrake is still rolling Mandrake-specific Mondo RPM's, so I'm hopeful. Mondo is part of Gentoo, Sorceror, LFS, Debian and soon ArkLinux. In general, people pick it up because it's good, not because I ask them, which is good because
hugo	usually I'm not gutsy enough to ask people to include it. Perhaps that's because of my upbringing. :)
hugo	* angelLuis has joined #qc
hugo	By the way, I just want to add that mkcdrec is a good backup/recovery program, too. The author is _very_ friendly and knowledgeable, too.
hugo	<abraar> hugo: I see. -- How are things shaping out? Development is time and time is money. Do you have enough contributors/enterprise customers to keep up with the development costs?
hugo	<ender> abraar: don't you know, Mondo developers run on crack.
hugo	<ender> Seriously, thats a good question for Hugo.  I'd like to see some corperate backing/funding, but I dont' think it's happened yet.
abraar	hugo: Should I be asking here instead of #qc?
ender	abraar: well, this channel was +m a minute ago.
abraar	ender: It isn't anymore I think. :)
ender	nope.
abraar	I just thought that #qc was the right place to ask questions. :)
hugo	Questions & comments in #qc :)
hugo	<hugo> Fortunately, the other developers have paid for a lot of hardware (as have I *g*), so we're doing this almost entirely out of our own bank accounts.
hugo	I personally charge for 1-to-1 technical support. If a user donates money for hardware, it is spent on hardware.
hugo	If a user purchase my time, I spend that money on food and on my upcoming wedding. :)
hugo	<ender> I got involved because I found NFS support to be a bit lacking, and I couldn't spend any $$ to get support, so I thought I could lend what ever skills I had to the cause.  I seemed to have been sucked into the project, and now it's one of my proudest accomplishments.  (the support side of it, not the development)
hugo	<hugo> Yes, ender saves my sanity by answering 40-50% of the e-mails.
hugo	<abraar> hugo: Has mondo been through any kind of auditing (like security)? It would certainly help to improve its adoption into the enterprise area, IMHO.
hugo	<hugo> abraar: Mondo is not secure. I mean, it hasn't been audited, so how can it be? :) I've tried to avoid strcpy() and gets() and so on... but you're right, it needs a thorough audit.
hugo	<ender> abraar: Unfortionatly, it has not been through an official security review.  I am going through the code, and slowly helping hugo replace some potential security problems.  Mindi has a planned total rewrite in the near future as well, with security as a concern.
sarnold	(thanks to arador and emporer for their translation :)
angelLuis	plas plas plas plas plas plas plas
angelLuis	plas plas plas plas plas plas plas
hugo	<hugo> Mondo's biggest security hole is its use of system(), which calls a shell when calling an external executable. That's a gaping hole. I want to use execpve() and similar soon. However, seeing as Mondo is a root-only binary anyway, it's not really that bad ... for now.
Arador	hugo: clap clap clap clap clap (late, i know ;)
hugo	:-D
Arador	hugo: what's the problem with cramfs?
hugo	Arador: Cramfs is a great idea. It makes a compressed ramdisk which is accessed without decompressing it first. Something like that.
ender	Arador: it's a compressed ram file system.
hugo	The conventional ramdisk uses a lot of extra space when extracted.
hugo	The cramfs is much more RAM-efficient.
hugo	However, it doesn't work well with boot disks.
Arador	compresse ram fs...i see
sarnold	hugo: i dunno, my debian boot disks work fine :)
hugo	There is probably a simple command-line parameter to pass to the kernel, to disable cramfs.
hugo	However, no-one has found it yet.
hugo	sarnold: Perhaps they pulled cramfs? I hope so. :) It breaks all kinds of things. That's why no other distribution uses it.
hugo	I'm not anti-Debian... it's just that Debian is the hardest of all Linux distributions for me to support.
hugo	It's even worse than Gentoo. Gentoo has an excuse because it's rolled from sources by the individual user, so each system will be different.
sarnold	hugo: it made sense at the time :)
ender	and me.
jmgv	debian is the best distribution in the world :-)
sarnold	hugo: when they came up with that standard, cramfs was the best way to go :)
jmgv	debian/rules
ender	Ok, this isn't a forum for distro talks... (;
Arador	i don't know in the world, but it's the best in my computer: :P
jmgv	:-)
jmgv	endre i agree
hugo	I'm suspicious of any distribution which claims to be GNU/Linux but doesn't even include gawk in the default installation.
hugo	What's the G of Gawk for? Oh wait, they use Awk. :)
tarzeau	debian rules!
tarzeau	www.linuks.mine.nu/debian-worldmap/
hugo	OK, I'll stop now. :)
ender	everybody has their favorite, and We (the MondoDev Team) work hard to get mondo working on your favorite.  But perhaps, we work just a bit harder to make sure it works on _our_ favorite (;
Arador	can't be distro-independant?
jmgv	and what about inmunix? :-)
sarnold	hugo: but debian has three *awks to choose from :)
tarzeau	hugo: did you mention ibackup? can i mention itt?
ender	Arador: there are too many slight differences for it to be independant.
hugo	tarzeau: Please do. :)
hugo	jmgv: We don't play favorites. If Mondo runs on that distro, great. If not, send us a copy & we'll do our best.
Arador	i mean...why to use your fdisk, your mkfs....why not a binary image of everything that mondo wants to use?
tarzeau	if you only want to backup your configuration files (and heck if only they were all in /etc), i've made iBackup (after having lost my /etc twice playing with hdparm (with a 6 months gap inbetween the losses, no i had no backup))
jmgv	i was joking,... sarnold work to improve inmunix ;-)
tarzeau	www.linuks.mine.nu/ibackup/
ender	Arador: because then we arn't able to do the nifty things like re-adjust file system layouts, and turn one disk system into 5 disk systems, and vice versa.
hugo	Arador: If we use your kernel, your binaries, etc. then we can guarantee compatibility with your system.
hugo	If we use our own then we can't.
ender	Arador: we wouldn't be able to migrate raid systems to single disks, and vice versa, we wouldn't be able to expand partitions to fit larger harddrives, and vice versa.  Also, there are plenty of other tools out there that just make bitcopy images of disks.  Ghost comes to mind, and the Gost4Unix.
Arador	i see
jmgv	next talk is very interesting to me... but i am getting asleep
jmgv	i am very very tired :-/
sarnold	jmgv: 'gnith :)
hugo	I must go. Thank you for your time & attention, ladies & gentlemen.

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