From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 27 16:58:09 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D72A816A417 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:58:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from mail.potentialtech.com (internet.potentialtech.com [66.167.251.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA33613C442 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:58:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from working (c-71-60-127-199.hsd1.pa.comcast.net [71.60.127.199]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.potentialtech.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D73A5EBC3B for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:58:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:58:08 -0500 From: Bill Moran To: FreeBSD Questions Message-Id: <20080127115808.74051c27.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <479CB34A.1060709@otenet.gr> References: <89ce7f740801270759l780e08aaw16710154bf1debe6@mail.gmail.com> <20080127172851.G3181@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <479CB34A.1060709@otenet.gr> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd6.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: How to backup the users X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:58:09 -0000 Manolis Kiagias wrote: > > Wojciech Puchar wrote: > >> Hello, > >> > >> I am running a small FreeBSD server and I have a a couple of users > >> ssh'ing to it. I want to wipe the server out and reinstall FreeBSD on > >> it, but I want to preserve the users' credentials. Can you please > >> advise me how to back them up? > > > > /home/* > > /etc/master.passwd > > /var/cron/tabs/* > > /var/mail/* > > > > possibly other files. > > > > > > but format+reinstall is when you have windows, with unix there is no > > need to. > > > > > You might as well save the whole /etc, you will probably need other conf > files and surely you would like to have /etc/passwd and /etc/group > In fact, I would also backup the whole /usr/local/etc to get all the > configuration settings for my services and so on. A good, general rule of thumb for backing up a system is: /etc /usr/local/etc /home /var /var is the wildcard here ... /etc and /usr/local/etc are generally very small. /home can be huge, but if it is, it's probably because there is a lot of important data there. But /var can be large with a lot of stuff that you may not want to back up. Do you need /var/log, for example? Frankly, if you have enough space to back up, I recommend you back up the entire system and restore selectively. Do you have, for example, a database in /usr/local/pgsql? If you're asking this question, you're probably better off safe than sorry. -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com