From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 31 09:52:23 2003 Return-Path: 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 8862016A4CE for ; Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:52:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail1.acecape.com (mail1.acecape.com [66.114.74.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7F1C43D41 for ; Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:52:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from lists@natserv.com) Received: from p65-147.acedsl.com (p65-147.acedsl.com [66.114.65.147]) by mail1.acecape.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id hBVHqJEi020024 for ; Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:52:19 -0500 Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:53:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Francisco Reyes X-X-Sender: fran@zoraida.natserv.net To: FreeBSD Questions List Message-ID: <20031231124856.C48743@zoraida.natserv.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Backing up programs X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 17:52:23 -0000 With every HD problem I loose less and less data. On my last episode I lost only the current day's worth of data (backup at night). However I realised that I also need to backup programs installed on the machine. It takes a long time to rebuild all packages (I had a list of ports I had installed). How do others backup their programs? I am undecided between trying to backup the entire /usr/local and making packages of my critical ports and burning that to CDs. I also took care of all system files, but I realized that backing up all of /etc wasn't so helpfull if I didn't know which files I used. I also, as of last crash, am going to backup /usr/src since restoring all of /etc only makes sense with matching sources. The one thing I have against trying to backup all of /usr/local is that something like PostgreSQL may cause the backup problems whereas the package solution will be a one time deal and will not affect production. The other thing I learnt that needs to be backed up is the /usr/ports directory.