Recipe 16.15. Verifying the Mondo Backup

16.15.1 Problem

You would like to verify that your new Mondo backup is good. It's always a good idea to verify that a backup is good; finding out that it's bad when you need to do a restore is not good for your health.

16.15.2 Solution

Use Mondo's compare command.

Boot up the Mondo disk on the same system that created it. At the command prompt, type:

# compare

This will take a while, depending on the size of the backup. When it's finished, review the changes by reading the /tmp/changed.txt file. You can expect to see differences in logfiles, mail spools, /etc/mtab, and other files that change frequently. There should not be changes in static system files, such as executables in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/sbin, or in static configuration files in /etc.

16.15.3 Discussion

Always test your backups! After running compare, restore a few files from the Mondo disk. If you have a spare PC that is the same hardware configuration, you can do a complete restore on it (the surest method).

16.15.4 See Also

• mondoarchive(1)

• Your locally installed Mondo documentation (/usr/share/doc/mondo/hml/1.6x-howto)

• Mondo user forums (http://forum.mondorescue.org)