Make CD-ROM Recovery

Make CD-ROM Recovery is a robust disaster recovery software for Linux systems that creates a bootable (El Torito) image, CDrec.iso, which includes backups of the overall system. Such backups can either be stored on the same CD-ROM or CD-RW, provided that there is enough space, or a multi-volume CD-ROM set. If storage space is limited, then backups can be kept on another local disk or NFS disk, or a remote tape. In case of a disaster, such as a disk crash or system intrusion, one can boot from the CD-ROM and restore the complete system as it was when the mkCDrec was executed by running the /etc/recovery/start-restore.sh command.

Furthermore, the software offers cloning capabilities with the clone-dsk.sh script, using which one can restore a disk to any other disk of different sizes. Similarly, the restore-fs.sh script enables the user to restore one specific filesystem to a partition of their choice, and decide on the partition's formatting alongside the filesystem. Make CD-ROM Recovery also supports Linux kernels 2.2.x, 2.4.x, and 2.6.x, and can even make boot floppy for kernels with a size of less than 2.88 Mb, emulated on CD-ROM.

This powerful software supports various file systems, such as ext2, ext3, minix, xfs, jfs, reiserfs, LVM, and software RAID with multiple devices, with each file system backed up as a compressed tar archive, including the tar log. The compress program used is the user's choice between gzip, bzip2, lzop, and others. Additionally, mounted partitions such as msdos, fat, vfat, and ntfs, are recognized and are saved as compressed dumps on CD, tape, etc. The backups can be encrypted with OpenSSL if required, see the Config.sh configuration file for information.

Make CD-ROM Recovery also comes with One Button Disaster Recovery and Automatic Disaster Recovery support, making disaster recovery simpler and more efficient. The clone-dsk.sh script allows one to restore only selected disks or partitions to any other available disk. This software supports a wide range of IDE (inclusive ATA), SCSI disks, hardware RAID based disks such as Compaq SMART2 Disk Array, LVM, and software RAID. Booting from an El-Torito CD-ROM is possible on IA32/64, powermac, and x86_64 GNU/Linux based computer systems only.

In the latest release, automatic booting of the initial ramdisk was switched to the ramfs file system, with support added for FedoraCore 7. Moreover, all #!/bin/sh were replaced by #!/bin/bash to ensure scripts work on newer Ubuntu versions. In summary, Make CD-ROM Recovery offers an outstanding disaster recovery solution with cloning, encryption, and multiple partition support for various file systems and disk types, making it a must-have for all Linux users.