purpose of /var/backups

[Daniel Bye]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 04:04:52PM -0600, Doug Poland wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On my 5.3-STABLE systems I have a directory in /var called backups.  A
> view of man hier says: 
> 
>    backups/   miscellaneous backup files
> 
> with files like:
> 
>   aliases.bak
>   aliases.bak2
>   group.bak
>   group.bak2
>   master.passwd.bak
>   master.passwd.bak2
> 
> I'm curious, what process are writing these files to this directory?

periodic daily is at work here.

--->$ find /etc/periodic -name '*backup*'
/etc/periodic/daily/200.backup-passwd
/etc/periodic/daily/210.backup-aliases

> Does something depend on these files existing?

Potentially, your ability to recover your system should any of the files
backed up become corrupted or compromised.

Dan

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Daniel Bye

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