Linux Writer Gets Ready For Disaster... Again

By: Rob Reilly
Thursday, September 2, 2004 12:26:58 PM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/5553/1/

Disaster Redux

Hurricane Charley roared through Southwest and Central Florida a little over two weeks ago. And even though the winds were down to 105 MPH in Orlando, where I live, it was dicey. That kind of energy destroys things.

So, now I find myself getting ready for another potential disaster, Hurricane Frances.

How will I send Linux stories to my editors if the power is out for a week, which it was? Likewise, with my broadband/cable connection, down for 14 days. How will I keep up with world events and email? I'll share some hard earned lessons with you in this story.

I'm not going to rehash all the common sense contingency plan type things that you most certainly have in place. You've planned, right?

What I am going to talk about are some of the little things that you might not have considered. Believe me, after a disaster, the little things can greatly influence your computing pleasure or pain.

Aside from destruction of your computer hardware, the two biggest headaches during and after a disaster, are power and network connectivity.

Power is the biggest headache, because without good old 110 volt service, none of your Linux desktops or Apache/Postgresql servers are going to be running. To get any work done you'll have to not only power those machines, but also your LCDs or monitors, your routers and your printers. That's just on your internal network.

Options for a business or home office could include a permanent setup, such as an LP gas powered Guardian, a standard portable gasoline generator or some type of inverter/battery arrangement. Adding in some lights or fans for comfort (the A/C won't be working) can complicate the matter.

Let's add up a quick example and see how much power we might need:

You could get a little 4000 watt consumer gasoline generator from one of the big retail home improvement stores. Better plan ahead, because I can tell you, after a disaster of any size, you simply won't be able to buy one. And let's not forget the extension cords (of correct capacity) and all those gallons of gas. Those little generator gas tanks hold 3 or 4 gallons and might be good for 4 hours. Multiply that by 6 days (without electrical power), like we had here in Orlando and you'll have to do 12 fill-ups and handle 48 gallons of gas. The big gas cans that I have hold 6 gallons and are very awkward to lift. I'll need at least 8 gas cans. Central Florida basically ran out of gas on day two, after the hurricane. Providing your own power is complicated and labor intensive.

Seems to me that if you can spring for a small standalone commercial generator system, it might be money well spent. Inverter/battery systems might work for a few hours, but you have to charge the batteries, somehow. Inverter/batteries aren't really what you would call continuous duty, but may work for very short term operations.

Networking and Data

Networking runs a close second, in importance, during and after a disaster, to power issues.

As, I said earlier, my cable/broadband was down for 14 days. That meant I had NO information conduit other than the portable AM/FM radio. Brighthouse Cable couldn't re-attach my coax (it was ripped off the house by a falling tree) until the downed trees were clear off of the power poles and power lines. You'll be amazed at how isolated you feel without your cable tv and broadband.

DSL is an option that you might want to consider. My regular phone line stayed up through the whole storm. Fortunately, the line runs underground in the neighborhood and on my property. DSL is usually the media of choice, instead of cable broadband, for businesses and offices, so this may be a non issue to you.

Another option is two-way satellite Internet. In researching on the Web, I found that they act just like your cable or DSL hookup. The dish sits outside and you connect your network to the companion "satellite modem". One concern would be anchoring the disk during and after the disaster. I've noticed that many businesses HAD high-end two-way satellite dishes on their roofs. Fooled you. All of the ones I was aware of came through Charley without any problem. Commercial units from somebody like GroundControl, seem to stand up pretty well to atmospheric abuse.

Linux Specific Prep includes checking your dial-up modem for correct operation, using an ISP that supports Linux dial-up and backups to CD.

One day after the storm, I found that I couldn't dial-out using kppp. I had rebuilt my laptop with SUSE 8.2 about 3 weeks before and always had connected to everything via broadband. I fiddled around with it off and on for a day or so and finally ended up configuring the modem via YAST2. The lesson here was, make sure your dial-up modem works before you need it. Don't forget to save a list of applicable access numbers, before you're without power and have no network connection.

Another point about dial-up is that all ISPs are not Linux friendly. You may recall my article about switching providers. One of the prime reasons I moved from RoadRunner to Earthlink was that I could never get their dial-up to work with my Linux laptop. It was important because I was traveling and couldn't always get a wired/wireless network connection. RoadRunner required some funky login string and their tech support definitely didn't help me figure it out. I finally gave up, switched over to Earthlink and simply connected without any fuss. Too bad Earthlink doesn't offer me the unlimited dial-up with broadband anymore. That's OK, your broadband will only be down for a day or two. Riiiight.

How many of you businessmen, consultants and entrepreneurs do daily backups? Weekly? Monthly? If the answer is "sometimes", you better know how to put files on your CD burner, right before or in anticipation of a disaster. Linux makes it easy. Here are the steps to taking files off of your disk and putting them on a CD.

• Make note of the files you want to save to CD.
• Plug your CD burner to your USB connection.
• Make an ISO image of your data with:
•      rreilly> mkisofs -r -o /yourfiles.iso /yourfiles/*
• Burn the ISO onto the CD with:
•      rreilly> cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,0,0 -data /yourfiles.iso

If your roof gets blown away or you're in the middle of a flood, grabbing you're business backup CDs might be all you have time for. Better do it now.

While you're backing up your business CDs, you should also grab your Linux distribution set, a recent copy of Knoppix and possibly one of those new outboard harddrives with Linux pre-installed. Then, even if all your machines are smashed or waterlogged, you can buy some new boxes and be back running in short order. Put your CDs in a waterproof container and add it to your survival kit.

Back To "Business As Usual"

After the disaster has passed, your computing creativity really needs to kick in. We've seen some of the problems and how to prepare for them. What else can be done, in the weeks following, to get your business up and running again?

If you are a telecommuter or independent consultant and work out of your house, the next best place might be a cafe offering free WiFi. Panera Bread has been rolling out wireless broadband access for about a year. After Hurricane Charley, that was where I went to work. I could calm my nerves with a double expresso and a bagel, while replying to email and researching stories on the web. I even used Xchat on IRC to participate in discussions with colleagues. Don't know if a VPN connection works, but you can give it a try.

Places like StarBucks and other pay type hotspots would work as your emergency command center, as well. Many public libraries provide WiFi access now. You may have to register your MAC address, to gain access.

Plan on working out the bugs on using these alternative "operation centers" before the disaster hits. For example, my SMC 802.11b card always associates itself with the "staff" access point at the county library, if I have my ESSID set to "any". Of course, I'm part of the "public" and can never gain access on the "staff" leg. So, unless you know to use iwconfig to change the ESSID to "public", you'll chase your tail and waste a lot of valuable working time. With all the other things going on during and right after a disaster, the last thing you'll want to do is spin your wheels on problems that could have been avoided with a little upfront legwork.

Almost forgot, you are running at least a software firewall, like SuSE Firewall, aren't you, when you're on somebody else's network?

Here's an idea you probably haven't thought of for your small business. Do a reciprocal deal with several businessmen, in other regions, for temporary network access. For example, if I had a "network partner" in say, Gainesville, I could haul my servers up there, plug them in and resume customer operations. You might have to monkey around with DNS and other network settings. As you can see, this route would require quite a bit of planning and cooperation, although it's definitely do-able. Big companies have multiple server locations, but usually just sync the data to the another machine and don't physically move the hardware. Using Linux servers, you could automate the whole operation, to switch over on it's own, just like the big boys.

Going through even a minor catastrophe can really affect your computer operations, especially if you have a small business. I've found that Linux people usually tend to be the hands on, get it done types. They like to face adversity and come out on top. They at least like to make the rough spots as easy to get through as possible. Perhaps some of my tips will help you with that.

As for me, I'm going to get up in the morning and finish putting the plywood on my windows. Hurricane Frances is on the way. Maybe all that planning and pruning will help keep my broadband connection up this time.