Harddrive

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S.M.A.R.T.

• apt-get install smartmontools

If you have already smartsuite, it will be removed first.
On my system, there was a bug in the pre-removal script and I had to help a bit to remove this package:

• /etc/init.d/smartsuite stop
• echo "exit 0" > /etc/init.d/smartsuite
• dpkg -r smartsuite

Turn SMART on (only once in HD's life):

• smartctl --smart=on --offlineauto=on --saveauto=on /dev/hdX

Enable the daemon:

• Edit /etc/default/smartmontools and uncomment start_smartd=yes
• Edit /etc/smartd.conf:
  • DEVICESCAN -a -o on -S on -m root@teuwen.org -s (S/../.././02|L/../../6/03)

Selftests:

• smartctl -t short /dev/hdX
• smartctl -t long /dev/hdX
• smartctl -l selftest /dev/hdX

Repairing

Forcing sector reallocations:

• badblocks -n -s -v /dev/hdXX
• Destructive: badblocks -w -s -v /dev/hdXX

Rescuing

• apt-get install ddrescue
• If you have a knoppix, dd-rescue was probably installed.
  This is an older version packaged only for the knoppix.
  dpkg -r dd-rescue;apt-get install ddrescue
• dd_rescue -A -a -v /dev/hdXX /rescue-hdXX
• dd_rescue -h for other options

See also

• dd_rhelp
• dd_rescue
• http://icarus.cc.uic.edu/aciani1/sector_blues.html

Rebuilding filesystem

For ReiserFS:

• apt-get install reiserfsprogs
• losetup /dev/loop0 rescue-hdXX
• reiserfsck --rebuild-sb /dev/loop0
• reiserfsck --rebuild-tree --scan-whole-partition --logfile rebuild.log /dev/loop0

Restoring from backuppc

Prepare the HD

• delay backups on backuppc interface
• boot on Knoppix
• partition the HD
• mount /dev/hdaX /mnt/hdaX

Make the computer accessible to backuppc as the computer to restore

• attribute the correct IP
• restore sshd keys on Knoppix ramdisk via tgz
• /etc/init.d/ssh start
• restore /root/.ssh/authorized_keys on Knoppix ramdisk

The big operation

• restore all / on /mnt/hdaX via backuppc
• check for errors (possibly failed restoration of some symlink and mknod...) and create them
  • gawk '/symlink/{match($0, /"(.*)".*"(.*)"/, a); system("ln -s " a[2] " " a[1])}'

Last steps: MBR and missing dirs if they were excluded from the backup:

• /etc/init.d/libdevmapper1.00 start
• cp -a /dev /mnt/hdaX/dev
• chroot /mnt/hdaX
• mkdir /tmp; chmod go+w /tmp; chmod +t /tmp
• mkdir /proc
• mkdir /mnt; cat /etc/fstab | gawk '/mnt/{system("mkdir " $2)}'
• mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial
• mount /proc /proc -t proc
• lilo/grub-install /dev/hda
• exit
• umount /mnt/hdaX
• reboot

If you want to change the filesystem type, you are free to do so but pay attention:

• change /etc/fstab accordingly
• recreate the initrd image
  • mount /sys /sys -t sysfs
  • dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-XXXXX (look for initrd completion messages)

Managing the swap

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Check memory usage

cat /proc/meminfo
cat /proc/swaps

Swap partition

Here are the steps to create and enable a swap partition:

fdisk... (create the partition of the proper size, partition type 82)
mkswap -c /dev/hdXX
swapon /dev/hdXX

Swap file

Here are the steps for making a (256M) swap file:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=262144
mkswap /swapfile
sync
swapon /swapfile

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To have the swap enabled automatically at bootup, you have to include the appropriate entry into the file /etc/fstab, for example:

/dev/hdXX swap swap defaults 0 0
or
/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0

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If you ever need to disable the swap, you can do it with (as root):

swapoff /dev/hdXX
or
swapoff /swapfile

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You may also want to see the nice info written by Linus Torvalds himself:

man mkswap

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Simulating RAID 0 (striping) for the swap

• Simply give the same priority to both swap partitions:
• /dev/hda2 swap swap defaults,pri=1 0 0
• /dev/hdc2 swap swap defaults,pri=1 0 0