What to backup

Mike Jeays Mike.Jeays at rogers.com
Wed Sep 15 18:31:11 PDT 2004


On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 18:23, Scott Gerhardt wrote:
> On Sep 15, 2004, at 1:08 PM, Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> > On 09/15/04 11:19 AM, Curtis Vaughan sat at the `puter and typed:
> >> I have a question about what exactly I should backup on my 5.3 FreeBSD
> >> Server. So far I have chosen the following directories for full 
> >> backup.
> >>   But perhaps some is overkill.
> >>
> >> /etc
> >> /boot
> >> /home
> >> /var/log
> >> /usr/ports
> >> /root
> >> /usr/local
> >> /usr/src
> >
> > As mentioned by other posters, you can probably omit /usr/local,
> > /usr/ports, and /usr/src, but of course you may want to include any
> > directories you make code changes in, particularly if you have a habit
> > of hacking the kernel.  I also make a point of saving any custom kernel
> > configs in /root/kernels, and softlinking them to 
> > /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/
> > so that when /root is backed up, the kernel config is too.
> >
> > I still haven't found a reliable way to save my fvwm2 patch in the 
> > ports
> > directory (I changed the screen wraparound behavior) so I just keep 
> > that
> > one in my home directory.  That's pretty much the only port I've 
> > hacked,
> > so it works for now.
> >
> > You might also want to back up /usr/local/etc if you skip /usr/local.
> > Many important ports will use this area for configs, and you won't want
> > to lose the weeks or months you spend tweaking these out either.
> >
> > Good luck
> >
> > Lou
> > -- 
> > Louis LeBlanc               FreeBSD at keyslapper.org
> > Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :)
> > http://www.keyslapper.org                     Ô¿Ô¬
> 
> 
> You might want to make sure to get /usr/local/etc/ which includes all 
> the local configs and periodic scripts.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> --
> Scott A. Gerhardt, P.Geo.
> Gerhardt Information Technologies
> 
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> 

For my desktop machine, I make a habit of putting a comment with my
initials in every configuration file that I modify.  I then have a
nightly run that finds all these files and copies them to a
sub-directory in my home directory, and the home directory is then
copied to another machine.  Periodically, I burn a CD of the home
directory.  I have found this a reliable way to make sure that I can
always re-create my machine if things go badly wrong.  I don't mind if
it takes an hour or two to reinstall and reconfigure, provided I am sure
I won't lose anything I have worked on myself.



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