On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, David Talkington wrote:
> doug piper wrote:
>
> >I will do a fresh install of 7.2. I have no problem backing up files on my Linux
> >hard drive although I haven't done so previously as I can still mount all of my
> >linux drives and backup any data which is important to my Windows drive using
> >Linux rescue. But it does seem kinda extreme.
>
> No it isn't. What's "extreme" is trying to leapfrog 4 OS releases and
> expect to have no trouble. "Upgrading" is always waste of time, and
> in this case, it's just plain silly. If you've outgrown 6.0, why are
> you afraid of wiping it clean? If you like your system the way it is,
> why are you changing it now, after hanging on to 6.0 for so long? If
> you're afraid of losing settings and data, then you've done a poor job
> of managing your system anyway. Either you want a fresh start, or you
> don't. Trying to have it both ways changes nothing for the better;
> instead, it buys you the worst of both worlds. Kinda like midsize
> front-wheel-drive sedans.
I feel the same way, but probably not have worded it so harshly.
> Put your data on one filesystem, and the OS on several others. Have
> backups. Have copies of your config files. You'll be free! You can
> switch Red Hat versions, change Linux distributions, or even switch to
> BSD in a heartbeat, or do all three and roll it back to where you
> started in a couple of hours.
I wrote a tool to help with this It's too system-specific to publish, but
here is the methodology.
All config files worth saving are small text files. If you back up small
text files, and whatever databases and content you know about, it should
be relatively easy to restore your system after a crash, and the results
will often fit on a CDR.
I wrote a perl script that starts out with a regexp of files/directories
to always include (like my apache DocumentRoot) and a regexp of
files/directories to always exclude (like /proc). It then does a "find /
-type f", applying the include/exclude rules. Then I do:
if($Source !~ /$ExcludeDirs/ &&
$Source !~ /$ExcludeFiles/ &&
-T $Source &&
$Size < 10000 )
{
Debug("$Source\n\tNormal file, Size ($Size) and type OK");
DoBackup();
}
Now here's the fun part:
DoBackup() just creates a symbolic link, which takes up no hard drive
space, from the file to be backed up to an identical spot under a build
directory. When I've done all that, I use mkisofs (which follows the
symlinks) to build an ISO I can burn on CD, or just mount -o loop.
You can use any strategy you want for doing the actual backup, what is
important is the technique for selecting what files to back up.
Let me know if you have any troubles.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DDDD David Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://thekramers.net
DK KD
DKK D "Questions are a burden to others,
DK KD Answers a prison for oneself."
DDDD -The Prisoner
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