The sysbk implementation in DA has some files left out that are important to the reinstallation of the system. Fortunately the implementation is fully adjustable from the web-based interface DA includes, and you, or I, or both of us, can certainly take the time to resolve the issues.
It's taken us many trial and error hours to determine the proper files and directories to back up and to come up with a list which we're willing to give away as soon as we do one more verification run.
We always honor the licenses under which we work, and since sysbk is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), we will publish any changes we make in the core sysbk code.
With the combination of the list of files that need to be backed up, and a copy of any of the changes we'll finallly make to Sysbk (as of now we haven't made any), anyone should be able to duplicate our work, in a lot less time than we've taken. And of course at that point, should you do so, you may certainly give it away if you want; that's the beauty of Open Source.
We've also invested a lot of hours in determining exactly how to do the restore, and we'll be publishing a how-to as well.
DA is a great low-priced system that manages server hosting. DA (the company) has merged my exim.conf file (on which we also spent many hours of work) into DA (the product), and they're certainly welcome to merge my published and released work on Sysbk into DA as well.
But writing a script to automate the How-To process (which includes a lot of lines such as "Do an intelligent merge between the /etc/passwd file on both systems" is going to be as time-consuming as the rest of the project.
DA (the product) doesn't do everything. Which leaves some room for some niche developers.
As always, for you, it's a matter of time vs money. The DA staff is a certain amount of manpower and is already swamped with work. Perhaps theyll eventually include a fully and properly implemented backup and restore solution.
What I've done, since I needed one now, is create my own without waiting for them.
Now I'm willing to give away a major piece of my work, or sell you the finished solution if you need it.
Many DA users won't buy it, and they'll still offer excellent service to their clients. Because they'll take the time to do it themselves. Perhaps they'll even come up with a better solution than mine.
And the beauty of it all is we can choose.
Jeff