Become A System Rescue Guru With Linux, Part 2

Network Rescue

Last week we learned how to rescue a failing hard drive by copying files to a second local hard drive. You can also copy files over the network, which is useful for nearly any problem, whether it's software or hardware. You need a second PC running sshd. Suppose the second PC is named filestore. Boot SystemRescueCD on the sick computer, then use the scp command to copy your important files:

% scp -pr /home alrac@filestore:rescuedfiles/

-p preserves modification times, access times, and modes. This only makes sense on Linux filesystems. -r means recursive, or copy all the contents of a directory.