Thinking about redundancy for IPCop

I am thinking about implementing software RAID-1 for my IPCop server. The 3GB hard drive currently in use is very old, although so far it has proven reliable. I want to mirror it with another hard drive, so it can take over automatically in the event of failure.

Is it possible to implement RAID in IPCop? If so, how should I go about it? Also, can anybody recommend other redundancy tips and general maintence tasks I should be carrying out on the server to prolong it's life; both hardware and software?

Thanks all

PS, I've had my IPCop box running for about 6 months now :good:

 

IPCop is not currently geared for redundant drives. However, it does have a robust backup feature. Since IPCop only takes about five minutes to install and a backup only takes seconds to restore, downtime would be extremely minimal.

That said, I suppose since it *is* a pretty standard Linux build, you could always take the source and roll in the RAID kernel modules, then manually install the mdadm tools.

 

I should probably practice backing up and restoring IPCop using a virtual machine. Better safe the sorry.

 

I don't really think running a lab for backup and restoration is necessary for IPCop in particular, since it's so simple in practice. All you have to do is create a backup through the web GUI and save it someplace off-drive/offsite. Restoration is equally straight-forward. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, then there's certainly no harm. Besides, running labs in a non-production environment is extremely good practice in principle, and surprisingly few IT pros actually do this.

 

Products like VMware certainly make it easier to do, as you don't need spare hardware lying around. You can create a baseline system and take a snapshot of it, which is essentially like taking a photo. If you screw up the operating system through testing, all you have to do is restore the snapshot. It's as simple as clicking one button.

I can't imagine life without virtualisation now...

 

I have a full lab at work, so I suppose I take this for granted. But if I didn't, I'm sure I'd run a lot of labs in virtualization. Of course, with networking, virtualization is not very practical anyway.