Question : Problem: Universal method of bare metal backup/recovery (without purchasing a 3rd party tool)

Hi

I'm asked to test out a bare metal recovery, assuming our Redhat boxes' disks
(esp  root/system disks, SAN partitions) were to crash.

Purchasing a 3rd party tool is not an option.

Currently I know how to recover data partitions using our Central Backup tool,
HP DataProtector 5.5  but bare metal recovery using DP is a hassle - don't even
have a clue how to go about doing it & I believe we need to reinstall the OS
followed by a DP agent & then only perform restore

I'm looking for something the equivalent of Ghost or Acronis image backup of
Windows for Linux


Questions :

a)what's the easiest & simplest freeware (or tools that come with Redhat) that
  could perform bare metal backup/recovery (without the need to reinstall the OS
  if possible)?

b)I have also installed numerous patches, SAN drivers/tools which I don't wish to
   reinstall - how can these be taken care of?

c)if we have VxFs & SAN partitions (I'm not sure if there's any GFS & cluster fencing
   information), I do not want to go thru the hassle of  recreating the disk partitions &
   those configurations - will  the disk partition & configuration information be backed up
   as well?


Once  /, patches & partition tables have been recreated,  I can use our DP to restore
the data.


On a more difficult situation (I'll request to waive testing this one), if there's raw (Oracle)
partitions & file system types like ASM (Oracle's Automated Storage Manager), can these
partitions be created as well - the data restoration part will be handled by our DBA (not
my call)

Answer : Problem: Universal method of bare metal backup/recovery (without purchasing a 3rd party tool)

Simplified example;

1/ Backup to tape using tar (separate file systems using --one-file-system or full dump from root), use your preferred backup tool if you like.
2/ Obtain hardware listings, df -h, fdisk -l, etc.
3/ Oops disaster.. use different hardware (possibly)
4/ Boot from the main install media in rescue mode.
5/ Partition a disk.
6/ Mount all the partitions under /newroot or whatever.
7/ Restore from backup to /newroot.
8/ Customise the following if necessary;
    /newroot/etc/fstab
    /newroot/etc/modprobe.conf or the modules.conf file.
    /newroot/boot/initrd using mkinitrd
    /newroot/boot/grub/menu.lst
9/ Install the grub boot loader
10/ Reboot.

You could also do a base install and overlay your OS on the top.