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Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 05:28:59 -0800
From: Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu@freebsd.org>
To: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>
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Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: kernel backup on 7.0
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On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 01:58:08PM +0100, Ivan Voras wrote:
> James López (BLuEGoD) wrote:
> 
> > Not exactly.. What I mean is that I want to reinstall FreeBSD due to
> > some accidentally deleted files and a behavior on sendfile :S
> > So I would like to know if I can backup /boot and the overwrite it once
> > I have freebsd installed again...
> 
> Yes. If you don't change FreeBSD versions or hardware, this will work.

Clarification: it _might_ work.

You need to keep in mind that the kernel/modules he's backing up will
very likely *not* match all the binaries he has on his disks, library
calls, possibly system calls, etc. etc...  This is why building world
includes both all the binaries *as well* as the kernel.

The reason I point this out is, when certain things in kernel-land
change which certain programs rely upon (but haven't been recompiled to
be aware of that change), odd things can happen.  The most "famous" of
the bunch is when top(1) or ps(1) start failing in bizarre ways.

Thus, my point: it *probably* will work, but DO NOT assume that it will.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                           http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP: 4BD6C0CB |