Make CD-ROM Recovery (mkCDrec)

News

Important Announcement

We are proud to release version 1.0 as of 29 March 2010. Almost 10 years after we released version 0.3 (in November 2000) we may call this a stable release (it was already stable, but when the release number is lower then 1.0 it is still referred as a beta release).

However we want to emphazise that we will not add new feature into mkcdrec anymore. Only expect bug fixes (or security fixes). Since 2006 we are working on Relax and Recover (rear) which is the successor of mkcdrec, and therefore, all new programming effort will go into rear from now on.

Changelog of v1.0

The latest release of mkCDrec contains the following updates:

v1.0
 - rd-base.sh: added support for ext4 file systems (gdha, 04/Mar/2010)
 - rd-base.sh: added support for Xen virtual devices (gdha, 03/Mar/2010)
 - Config.sh: added ext4 support (gdha, 26/Feb/2010)
 - initrd.sh: do an umount of stagedir at the start (gdha, 11/Dec/2009)
 - README: updated date and donation section (gdha, 11/Dec/2009)
 - updated .config.bb for busybox-1.15.2 (gdha, 11/Dec/2009)
 - replaced busybox-1.12.0 with 1.15.2 (gdha, 11/Dec/2009)
 - linuxrc: if ROOT_FS=ext2 then mount new_root as rw (gdha, 07/Sep/2009)
 - rc.sysinit: corrected type winnnt into winnt (gdha, 07/Sep/2009)
 - rd-base.sh: add some checks if USBKEY is requested (gdha, 04/Sep/2009)
 - make_common.sh: added 3 new functions Check_USBKEY_bootable, 
   Check_USBKEY_FileSystemType and Check_USBKEY_MBR (gdha, 04/Sep/2009)
 - Config.sh: added SYSLINUXPATH variable (gdha, 04/Sep/2009)
 - bootflop.sh: correct syslinux -s ${USBKEY_MOUNT} into 
   ${USBKEY_DEV} in the echo line (gdha, 02/Sep/2009)
 - bootx86_64.sh: modified to work with syslinux for USB key (gdha,
 02/Sep/2009)
 - messages/*: changed 2008 into 2009 (gdha, 02/Sep/2009)
 - Makefile.x86_64: USB-KEY rule: changed bootflop.img into boot.img
   (gdha, 02/Sep/2009)
 - Config.sh: added some scsi modules to the INITRD_MODULES and SCSI_MODULES
   to have a wider range of supported HW for cloning purposes (gdha,
   28/Aug/2009)
 - Makefile.*: in dist added "--exclude .cvsignore" (gdha, 28/Aug/2009)
 - Makefile.X86_64: added the USB-KEY feauture to make boot from USB disk
   possible (gdha, 28/Aug/2009)
 - Config.sh: move DEVFS variable to section "do not edit below" as it became
   obsolete, but variable is still used (gdha, 28/Aug/2009)
 - Makefile.*: Changed VERSION variable to be compliant with rpmlint
   output (gdha, 18/May/2009)
 - makeISO9960.in: Checksum not computed for splitted big files; bug
   SF #2770478 (gdha, 18/May/2009)
 - linuxrc, linuxrc_pre, rc.sysinit: add fix of SF bug#2727011 (gdha,
 09/Apr/2009)
 - initrd.sh: added get_module ehci-hcd a second time (gdha, 09/Apr/2009)
 - VERSION: removed the v of v1.0.0 to be compliant with rpmlint (gdha,
 13/Mar/2009)
 - Config.sh: ETC_FILES: added mke2fs.conf file for SF#2392094 (gdha, 05/Jan/2009)
 - tsm-restore.sh: fix SF bug#2304377 (gdha, 05/Jan/2009)
 - restore_common.sh: set default blocksize 0 for tape restore (gdha, 12/Dec/2008)
 - linuxrc/linuxrc_find_and_prep_root: updated the INITRDIMG variable needed
   for RHEL5 ia64 platform (gdha, 20/Oct/2008)
 - rd-base.sh: create_parted_script_for_recovery function update for field
   NAME and FLAGS for the new parted layout for rhel5/ia64 (gdha, 20/Oct/2008)
 - start-restore.sh: added FSF=0 variable for correcting OBDR to
   restore an archive to the correct mount point; bug report
   of Thomas Ries (gdha, 18/Sep/2008)
 - Config.sh: added ahci to INITRD_MODULES for Dell T3400 Sata as
   advised by Thomas Ries (gdha, 18/Sep/2008)
 - Config.sh/initrd.sh: added patch for st driver to be recognized correctly
   from Thomas Ries (gdha, 18/Sep/2008)
 - Config.sh: added mount.nfs to BINARIES and made an entry in LINKS as
   described in topic "Unable to restore from NFS backups" found in the
   discussion forum "Open Discussion" (gdha, 18/Sep/2008)
 - Config.sh: MKDIR_LIST: remove / from /usr/lib32 and added var/run/network;
   in ETC_FILES added default/rcS (gdha, 16/sep/2008)

The complete Changelog is also available.

Related Projects

If you are a mkCDrec lover then the following project is a must to investigate, try-out and help with the development - Relax and Recover (rear)

Articles Published

An article has been published on mkCDrec at http://www.linuxzone.cz/index.phtml?idc=463&ids=29 (in Czechian/Slovian): interview by pandor of compclub.sk (English version) in Nov. 2002.

In the SysAdmin magazine of September 2002 a publication of article "Recovering Linux Systems with mkcdrec" by Kerry Thompson.

mkcdrec was mentioned in the Linux Magazine article "Speedy Recovery" in Nov. 2001.

In SysAdmin Magazine of March 2007 mkCDrec was referenced - see article on backup encryption.

Other References to mkCDrec

If you have found some useful link towards mkCDrec let us know so we can add it here.

mkCDrec and ReaR are listed on the Debianhelp tools section web page.

Ohloh has a page on mkcdrec -