Backup Whole System via Network.

hardc0l2e — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:23:48 +0000

You could easily perform a full backup or even store a system into a raw image which can be used in as guest machine in KVM. This takes couples of hours (depends on the size of the source linux system).

Here’s how:

From the target machine, you can either boot via a LiveCD or a rescue linux distro such as SystemRescueCD and via the console, check if it can detect your currently attached storage device.
```
#> fdisk -l
```
If it sees your hard drive you can now perform the arbitrary TCP/UDP connections and listens to port 12345.
```
#> nc -l 12345 | dd of=/dev/sda
```
In the source machine, you can know execute the command:
```
#> dd if=/dev/sda | nc 192.168.1.20 12345
```
Take note of the <port> 12345 and the <target IP> 192.168.1.20 I used in the example.
You can also store the dump in a raw image using this command:
```
#> nc -l 12345 | dd of=myimage.img
```
Done.

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Backup Whole System via Network.