CentOS - Jun 2010 - Using CentOS Live CD to recover trashed RHEL system

Hi,

There's a RHEL5 system somewhere across the internet with a trashed root
file system.  I have VPN access to the subnet where it lives.  But the
system is not talking to the network.

The current plan is having an onsite person boot from a CentOS Live CD, copy
a small script to configure networking, set a password for the centos user,
start sshd, and tweak the default firewall to allow incoming ssh
connections, once I have remote access to the live cd environment I'll
create a new lvm logical volume, create a file system, and restore from a
level 0 dump taken from a lvm snapshot just before things broke.  I'm pretty
confident I have all of the above under control.

The part I'm not certain about is the grub voodoo to get the system to boot
to the lvm with the restored root file system.

I'm not certain of the vintage of the restored root file system it was built
from an old RHEL5 installation cd and last updated a year or so ago.  I have
a CentOS 5.5 live cd .iso image staged for the onsite person to burn.  Are
there differences in the boot process for CentOS/RHEL 5.x versions that I
have to worry about.  Would it be better to try to get a closer match
between the root file system and the live cd vintages.

At the moment I'm googling for info on the grub incantations for changing
the root file system logical volume.

Any comments suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-- 
Drew Einhorn

"You can see a lot by just looking."
 --  Yogi Berra
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20100624/e37e6b8e/attachment.html>

> I'll create a new lvm logical volume, create a file system, and restore
from a
>level 0 dump taken from a lvm snapshot just before things broke.
Ok. 
> The part I'm not certain about is the grub voodoo to get the system to
boot to
> the lvm with the restored root file system.
Look at ./etc/lvm/backup/* in your dumped files, it will show you the VG,
LV and ID. Create your new VG and LV, then edit fstab to reflect or recreate it
w/
the same names. Just make sure fstab reflects whats actually in place.
> Are there differences in the boot process for CentOS/RHEL 5.x versions that
I have
> to worry about. ?Would it be better to try to get a closer match between
the root
> file system and the live cd vintages.
No, you're simply booting to env that allows you to create a new FS, this
might matter
if the recovery env created an FS that was some revision ahead of what your
dumped OS
uses, but given the info you provided, I think you are fine, give'er and let
us know...

jlc