Will a tar backup of the app server be a reliable method for preserving the integrity of the system (lawson will be down)? If not, do you have another recommendation.

Thanks

Since your doing "tar" I'm assuming it's a Unix flavor system. I'm also assuming it's NOT LSF9.

As long as Lawson is shutdown doing tar on everything would work fine, but do it as root to preserve rights. I would do individual directories as well, i.e. DB, apps, gen, etc. Just because those tar files can get pretty huge. This is of course dependent on your system, if it's not too huge, then one file can be fine -- but that's up to you.

Make sure to group the tar files and name them accordingly so you know what day, time, etc you did it. You don't want to mix and match.

You'll also need to get /etc/lawson & /etc/lawson.env - Plus you'll have to reinstall Server Express - so it's a good idea to keep a text file with your license keys somewhere in the Lawson hierarchy.