Backup and restore of raid1 device, after OS upgrade

We have a physical RedHat server with two 60GB local disks, and two RAID 1 devices on them. There are also a few multipathed SAN luns.

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes

Device     Boot     Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2628    21101568   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda2            2628        4598    15825920   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda3            4598        7298    21686272   82  Linux swap / Solaris


Disk /dev/sdb: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes

Device    Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        2628    21101568   fd  Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sdb2            2628        4598    15825920   fd  Linux raid autodetect


cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid1]
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
  15824828 blocks super 1.1 [2/2] [UU]
  bitmap: 1/1 pages [4KB], 65536KB chunk

md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
  21101496 blocks super 1.0 [2/2] [UU]
  bitmap: 1/1 pages [4KB], 65536KB chunk

 unused devices: <none>

Filesystem    Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md0      20G   9.0G  9.9G  48% /
/dev/md1      15G    13G  1.2G  92% /u01

The server is located in a vendor site, so we dont have direct access. We are planning to upgrade the OS from 6.3 to 6.5 and would like to take a backup of the root FS, in case we need to revert back. If this were a VM, we could take a snapshot before patching. Since this is a client system, we dont have permission to install any third party tools.

I have a few thoughts in mind, but am not sure if it is the right approach.

• Do either a rsync,tar,cp or dd of the FS or device


• Copy across the image to 'somewhere'. Not sure if I can copy to a lun, because multipath devices may not be accessible in rescue mode


• In case a restore is needed, boot into rescue and restore from saved image

Does this sound right? Where would that 'somewhere' be?

Thank you.