Kleo Bare Metal Backups for Servers -- README What exactly is Kleo? --------------------- Kleo is a graphical wrapper around the excellent open source program partimage. Partimage has always been an incredibly useful tool for creating backups, but most people, even advanced users found it was a challenge to handle. Kleo makes using this powerful tool simple without trading away any of its capabilities What's the benefit of Kleo? --------------------------- Kleo is a wizard style interface that walks you through the correct steps of performing a Bare Metal Backup. Here's the highlights 1) Pick the drive to backup from a list 2) Choose whether to store backups to Network or an external hard drive a. NETWORK i. Auto scan network for suitable targets ii. Pick target from list b. EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE i. Pick target from list 3) Confirm backup choices & start backup 4) Progress bar tracks progress Restores can be done using Kleo's Bare Metal Restore option. Or, since the backups are standard partimage files, you can use partimage from any Linux distro! What's Included? --------------- What good is a server backup if you're unable to recover when your server has failed?! The key to Bare Metal Backup is having a bootable recovery environment. A LiveCD with hard drive & network device drivers all ready to go. Kleo is therefore bundled with the Carroll-Net Server Recovery Kit (CnSRK). The CnSRK is a LiveCD. Its an Ubuntu Remix, that includes hundreds of specialized tools for server recovery. Tools that we always like to have handy during recovery operations. Here's a brief list of the CnSRK toolkit * Gparted * NTpasswd * Memtest86+ * Install-mbr * Grub / Syslinux * Gpart * Testdisk / Photorec * Dd_rescue / Gddrescue * Synaptics And as of late February, 2010, the CnSRK is now PXE Boot Ready. You can use the CnSRK to convert any laptop into a PXE Boot Server. This enables you to recover a server that lacks a bootable CD-ROM or bootable USB support. See http://carroll.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13 for more details. What does it cost? ----------------- Kleo is released as Freeware. It is free for any use, personal or commercial. You are free to make copies for friends, colleagues or even customers. Your right to use is perpetual. The CnSRK is release under GNU-GPL v2 licensing. You can download the source, remix, add, remove, have fun to your hearts content. If you create a re-mix, we'd appreciate you let us know we're always on the lookout for cool new features. Why is it Free? -------------- Many people are suspicious of anything that's free. "If it's so good, why doesn't it cost money..." is how the thinking goes. We originally developed Kleo and the CnSRK for internal consumption. We're in the Datacenter business, and need to manage hundreds of servers -- all different stripes & shapes every day. Originally the tool existed as disparate packages, CD's, DVD's and ad-hoc downloads you did depending on the situation. As you can guess, this get's pretty tedious. In our business, we have a large network of computer professionals we work with, and they kept mentioning how much they needed a Bare Metal Backup and Server Recovery Tool kit they could toss in their bag without having to worry about licensing issues. We decided to put Kleo & the CnSRK together on a single LiveCD and share them with our partners. Since we don't sell software, we figured why not share the package more broadly, and offer it to anyone who might be interested. Besides, we'll get the benefit of people's comments and feedback & land up improving it for everyone. And of course it's our chance to give something back to world of open source/freeware software we've benefited from for so many years. How can I get the latest? ------------------------ You can download the latest Kleo & CnSRK from http://www.carroll.net/index.php/downloads-kleo How can I reach Carroll-Net? --------------------------- Mailing Address: Carroll-Net, Inc. 905 Main St. Hackensack, NJ 07601 Voice: (201)488-1332 Web: http://www.carroll.net Email: sales@carroll.net support@carroll.net