[techtalk] disaster recovery of linux server

[wildgrass]

Dear all,
I am a newbie to this list and also a newbie to linux.

I am seeking advice of anyone who has knowledge/experience of disaster recovery
of a linux server.

I have a production linux box running RH6.2, and since it is running 
proprietary
unsupported software (Groupwise WebAccess using Apache-Jserv to be specific) I
have no idea if any updates I do to the box will break it.

Hence, I need to know how to recover the server in the event that it 
breaks, and
I need some ideas to get me started since I have not done disaster recovery 
on linux before.
I am currently doing backups using taper, and if I were to backup all files 
(except
for /proc and /var/log), what are the steps I need to take to recover my 
original
configuration?
eg.
What other files should I skip for the backup other than /proc and /var/log?
Do I need to change to single user mode?
What things do I need to do before I can start the restore?
Any pitfalls I should look out for?

Any tips/advice will be appreciated.

wildgrass