Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 08:38:57 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: saving configs [was: MUA's seen in the lists] Message-ID: <20010415083855.Y4964@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSO.4.21.0104141636440.5404-100000@aphex.newgold.net>; from Joseph Mallett on Sat, Apr 14, 2001 at 04:42:23PM -0400 References: <XFMail.010414133447.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <Pine.BSO.4.21.0104141636440.5404-100000@aphex.newgold.net>
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On Sat, Apr 14, 2001 at 04:42:23PM -0400, Joseph Mallett wrote:
>
> Imagine having to do this to back up configuration:
> find / -name '*.conf' -exec cp {} /backup/ ';'
> And then imagine restoring everything to its proper home.
> And then imagine all the files you missed because application X decided it
> didn't want to name its files with .conf, X11 comes to mind.
That'd be pretty futile. I run a script from cron that archives all of
the important config files, plus a few reports and a listing of the
contents of those archives showing the original paths. This can run
daily 12 hours from backup time, or occasionally for a static home machine.
It is NOT a substitute for backing up, but a more quickly accessed copy
of the files for a quick restore if one of them gets hosed. (Ever had a
server down while someone farts around with a tape to restore a 2k
file? Broke your fstab or password file at 5pm, or lost today's new
virtual domains setups? Discovered that the assistants haven't been
using RCS like they promised?) It's a wonderful resource if you ever
want to build the whole machine from scratch, e.g. on new hardware with
a very different version of FreeBSD plus a good dose of hindsight. You
know that all the info you need is in there, except the actual data --
no searching or head-scratching required.
These archives fit onto one floppy disk (two for the slow 386 where I
want the current built kernel as well). I use zip and put them on
DOS-formatted floppies, so that individual files can be extracted,
viewed, printed, copied to another floppy, from almost any old
Macintosh, OS/2, VMS, Unix, DOS, or even MS-Widows machine. For a
simple setup you can just copy the files and still fit them all on a
floppy.
They are easy to transport off site (a quick scp to somewhere secure,
or mail two disks in a regular envelope) and are so easy to make you'll
have enough not to worry about unreliability of the media. Store one
diskette every month or two for a compact history of the machine's configs.
I'm surprised that others don't do something similar.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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