The House Is On Fire!
Crisis Management in Linux

We’ve covered much ground in the series on Crisis Management in Linux. Today, we’ll summarize the series and add a few last tools.

The first item in your crisis management arsenal can easily be created at the time you install your Linux system - the boot disk. Boot disks in Linux contain a kernel image and the bare essentials for getting your system up and running. Boot disks differ from emergency disks, something we’ll talk about at the end of this summary.

The next emergency tool that everyone should have and utilize is the changelog. By keeping quick notes of the changes you make to your system, you should be able to restore to a previous working state. This changelog can be as cheap and easy as a notebook and pen sitting on your desk.

Backups are critical to crisis management in Linux. Files on your Linux system can be backed up manually or automatically, and to such diverse medium as floppies or CD-R. You can schedule backups in cron to take place on a regular schedule using a crontab entry. With these backups, you’ll be able to restore critical data or system files.

fsck is the built-in Linux equivalent to the DOS/Windows scandisk tool. If your system fails during boot, you may be able to use fsck to check and correct a corrupted filesystem. There’s an extensive explanation of advanced fsck features and capabilities in the fsck man page.

Finally, there are several single-floppy distributions of Linux that qualify as emergency disks. Emergency disks vary from boot disks in that they contain items other than a kernel image for restoring your Linux system in the event of an emergency. Perhaps the best-known is tomsrtbt. Be aware that when creating and using an emergency disk, you may need a kernel image floppy, as well. It’s also useful to periodically update these disks with items specific to your system. I’ll say, as well, that I’ve seldom had a Linux crisis that couldn’t be corrected with one or all of the first four tools.

You’re armed, now, with a very powerful fire extinguisher - a full set of tools to manage crises in Linux. Don’t you feel a bit more secure?