Guide to Linux Installation and Administration, 2E s1

Guide to Linux Installation and Administration, 2e Chapter 13 Solutions

REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. A backup plan would normally not include the following: a. A list of tape drive prices

2. Explain how the speed with which files need to be restored affects a backup plan. The more quickly data must be restored, the more effort and expense is required in the backup strategy, both in faster tape drives and more frequent backups to avoid delays in assembling a complete set of recovered data (see Figure 13-2).

3. Why might you back up operating system files as well as user data files? Because restoring the full operating system will all its configuration data can be much faster than re-installing it and reconfiguring it. But the operating system typically doesn’t need to be backed up frequently because its configuration doesn’t often change.

4. Which of the following is not likely to be a factor in selecting a specific backup device? a. The value of a project that cannot be done because data needed for the project was destroyed

5. Name two parts of a Linux system that are likely to change daily. Log files and user data

6. Explain why a level 1 backup is called an incremental backup. Because it only backs up data that has changed since the most recent level 0 backup. The term incremental refers to the incremental changes or growth in the files.

7. Using backup levels has the advantage of: c. Allowing a system administrator to spend less time with backups but keep data backed up very frequently

8. Using a standard three-level backup plan with the time intervals described in the chapter text, a user would expect never to lose more than _____ worth of work. b. A day’s

9. Explain why a system administrator must use backup media from three backups in order to completely restore a system that used three backup levels. Because the level 0 backup doesn’t contain the most recent backup and the level 1 and 2 backups don’t contain all the files on the system and so cannot be used alone.

10. Floppy disks are a useful backup media in cases where: b. Small amounts of critical data need to be backed up.

11. As a rule, tape cartridges can hold much more than optical media. True

12. The burdened cost of an employee includes b. The costs an employer must pay that are not part of the employee’s salary.

13. Using a SCSI interface to connect a backup device has the advantage of: c. High data transfer rates

14. Name five factors to consider when selecting a backup device and media type. Explain the circumstances in which each would be a controlling factor in the decision. A number of features are given in the section on Hardware and Software Issues 15. Name three tape cartridge formats and comment briefly on each. Several are described in the chapter text, such as DLT, SuperDLT, LTO, 4mm, 8mm, VXA, AIT, Travan, and SLR

16. You can expect a CD or other optical media to last about as long as high-quality microfilm. False

17. The purpose of verifying your backups is to: a. Be certain that files are correctly recorded and can be restored

18. Explain how redundancy relates to compressed data and why that is relevant to data backup operations. Compressing data removes redundancy, which means that it may be harder to reconstruct backed up data if it becomes corrupted.

19. The tar utility differs from the cpio utility in that: a. cpio always reads and writes to STDIN and STDOUT, while tar uses command-line parameters.

20. The _____ utility is a commercial backup utility from Knox Software. c. Arkeia

21. Describe why the find command is often used with tar or cpio for incremental backups. Because find can create a list of files with specific characteristics such as having been modified within a certain number of days or being owned by a particular user.

22. The _____ option causes the tar command to extract files from an archive file or device. b. x

23. Describe the special considerations that must be taken in order to restore the root file system of Linux after a hardware failure. Booting the system without an installed operating system; installing kernel modules needed to access the root file system device and the tape drive or other backup device; configuring the operating system correctly to start or continue a backup operation.

24. Which of the following formats holds the most data? c. SuperDLT

25. In the long term, backup media are likely to cost more than the backup device used to access them. True

HANDS-ON PROJECTS

Project 13-1 10. Use the ls command to review the contents of your home directory. Do you see a file called xinetd.conf? Look for an item named etc. The xinetd.conf file is not there. It was archived from the /etc directory, so when you restore it within your home directory, it is placed within a newly-created etc directory in your home directory. (For example, you would find the file in /home/nwells/etc/.)

Project 13-2 3. Look in the man page for cpio to find what the V and H options do. The V option prints out a dot for each file archived. The H option lets you specify the format of the achive created. ustar is the format that is compatible with the Linux tar command. 5. Notice that the full directory path for each file is included. What information is included for each file besides the filename? The file permissions, ownership, and data of creation.

6. What option could you use to change the ownership stored with each file? (See the cpio man page.) The -R user:group option.

7. Determine the size of the subdirectory you archived using this command: # du /usr/share/doc/p* | grep 75$

8. View the size of the cpio archive file: # ls -l ~/archive.cpio

9. How do these two compare? The archive is larger than the original directory.

11. View the cpio man page again to determine what the A and O options are used for. The A option indicates that the list of files should be appended (added to the end of) an existing archive file. The O option (which must be used in this case because A is used) indicates the name of an existing archive file to work with instead of writing all archive data to STDOUT.

14. What is the compressed size of the archive? Much smaller…

Project 13-3 12. Right-click any filename in the Ark main window. What options are available for any file in the archive? Extract, Delete, View, Open With, Edit With.