From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 23 22:23:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 445DE16A4E0 for ; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:23:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from mail5.sea5.speakeasy.net (mail5.sea5.speakeasy.net [69.17.117.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E518843D45 for ; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:23:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: (qmail 31218 invoked from network); 23 Aug 2006 22:23:35 -0000 Received: from dsl092-078-145.bos1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO be-well.ilk.org) ([66.92.78.145]) (envelope-sender ) by mail5.sea5.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 23 Aug 2006 22:23:35 -0000 Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147) id 2D7EF28449; Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:23:34 -0400 (EDT) To: DW References: <44E9FBA2.1010107@dwinner.net> From: Lowell Gilbert Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:23:34 -0400 In-Reply-To: <44E9FBA2.1010107@dwinner.net> (DW's message of "Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:29:54 -0400") Message-ID: <44ac5vozvd.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: pkg database backup and restore X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:23:36 -0000 DW writes: > If part of a normal backup routine, we are regularly backing up > /var/db/pkg, how can we best use that backup in a scenario in which a > machine needs to be rebuilt from scratch, and we're trying to save > time going through and doing a portinstall on everything we can > remember that should be installed? (or alternatively taking a backup > of the results from a periodic "pkg_info > installed_packages.txt" and > painstakenly going through the list and reinstalling everything > one-by-one). If you are reinstalling all the ports anyway, and you know which ones they are, then you probably don't need /var/db/pkg for the restore. Feeding the list of packages into portupgrade for installation would make the ports reinstall much less painful on the humans involved. -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org/~lowell/