How to restore a text file from UFS??

[Roland Smith]

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 09:07:51PM +0300, EforeZZ wrote:
> I edited my 50Kb /etc/rc.conf, loaded a driver and.... got a kernel panic!!
> After reboot my /etc/rc.conf is 0 bytes (after automatic background fsck).
> Which tool should I try now to restore any version of my rc.conf?..

The programs from sysutils/sleuthkit might help.

> I think data should still be somewhere on the disk....

That depends on if the partition where /etc/rc.conf is located is read/write
or read-only. In the latter case you are correct. In the former case part or
all of the sectors could have been re-used for other files.

For the best chance at recovery, make your root partition read-only _now_.

For future reference; you should never edit files in /etc/ directly. If you
want ot edit files in /etc or /usr/local/etc, first copy them to a directory
in your $HOME, put them under revision control and then edit them and copy the
edited files to /etc. That way you always have a backup and you can even
restore previous versions. I've documented the procedure I use on my webpage;
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/unix/configfiles.html

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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