Specifying bare metal settings for a client

Follow the steps below using the bare metal Bootable CD dialog to specify settings for a client on the backup system.

1        Select the client from the Bare Metal Client combo box. Only Intel and Intel-compatible clients are listed. The backup system does not appear in this list even if it has an Intel CPU since Bare Metal Plus is only for clients.

2        Specify the Backup Device to use when performing manual bare metal backups. This can be a disk-to-disk device.

3        The Is Root Disk SCSI toggle determines whether the client’s primary disk is SCSI or IDE.

4        Specify the network options. Indicate whether there is a firewall between the backup system and the client. Advanced network settings can also be specified which would contain the Netmask and the gateway information.

5        You may select Add Another Client and repeat the above process to configure additional clients to run on the same bare metal CD.

6        Click Create Bare Metal CDROM image.

7        Click Save to save the profile.

The images of the clients are stored in the following directory, where $BPDIR is the installation directory of the backup software (which is /usr/bp by default):

$BPDIR/cdrom_images

The software checks to ensure there is enough free space in the /usr/bp partition for the creation of the ISO images. The creation of the ISO images requires approximately 25MB. The image can be transferred to a CD and used for the bare metal of the client. After the creation of the image, a message is displayed to inform the user about the last backup for that client.

If a previous bare metal backup does not exist, use the crash recovery media to perform a bare metal backup of the system. Once the CD is created, use it to boot the client. If multiple clients are configured on the CD, a list of machine names are provided to select the appropriate client. If the CD is created only for one client, an unattended bare metal backup can be performed. For an unattended backup the software waits for 30 seconds before a bare metal backup is queued at the server. If the countdown is interrupted, then the Main Menu system is displayed with various options.

Bare Metal Plus supports:

     Bare metal bootable CD and the combo CD with an updated set of drivers. This greatly facilitates in detecting new hardware. The drivers are current with the latest Fedora release.

     You can manually change the root drive from the Utilities > Set Root Drive option. This feature helps you change the root drive from the standard hda or sda to the actual drive that is to be backed up. This feature plays a crucial role in the case where there is a zip drive attached to a lower SCSI ID than the root disk. In this case, now the root drive can be explicitly set to backup the appropriate drive.

     A Troubleshooting Menu has been added to facilitate problem solving when a problem situation occurs. This menu shows useful information, such as SCSI devices that are attached to the system, network configuration, modules loaded by the bootable operating system, and information about the hard drive such as geometry, size, and model type.

     Software ida and cciss devices.

     Bootable CD and CD/floppy combination for multiple clients to be configured on the same crash recovery media.

     Multiple network cards. It automatically detects and configures the appropriate card.