[LUAU] Thread on merits of package backups

Julian Yap julian_yap at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 28 02:01:34 PST 2011


For servers I usually backup /etc but that depends if the server has critical files that can't be replicated easily elsewhere.


And for servers I usually have a base install which can be replicated easily.  So you can just document this part in the install and other generic things performed afterwards.  eg. I change the MTA to Postfix, uninstall some packages.

And then for each server, I document the other packages installed.

Sometimes packages are built from source so that's documented as well.

So:
 - Backup whatever can't be replicated easily.
 - Document a generic install (avoids backing up almost everything).
 - Document custom packages or programs installed.

So my backups per server are very small.  For backups I use SafeKeep (http://safekeep.sourceforge.net/).


- Julian



________________________________
 From: Jason Axelson <bostonvaulter at gmail.com>
To: LUAU <luau at lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org> 
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: [LUAU] Thread on merits of package backups
 
I think that a list of packages along with backups of /home and /etc
will get you about 95% of the system that you need typically. Although
sometimes you might have something important that wasn't installed via
the package manager or installs itself along with configuration is
something like /opt

By the way for those unfamiliar with Linux's file system layout should
check out 'man hier'

Jason

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Brian Chee <chee at hawaii.edu> wrote:
> So here is a snip from a Linux reference, what I'd like to ask is how well
> folks think this will actually work?
>
> Being able to backup as small amount of info possible is a very good
> thing...
> *APT: Backup and restore your software*
>
> *Hopefully you're already backing up your documents in case of a crash, but
> did you know that there's no need to back up your whole system? Because of
> the way that Linux stores all its programs inside a package manager, it's a
> cinch to create a list of all the packages you have installed, then feed
> that back into your package manager when you want to restore your system.
> To do this, use the dpkg command to save your selections to a backup file,
> then read them back in at a later date. Note that you must performapt-get
> dselect-upgrade after setting your selections to make the changes happen.*
> *dpkg --get-selections > backup_file
> dpkg --set-selections < backup_file
> apt-get dselect-upgrade*
>
>
> What do you folks think? Will this get 100% of the system info, or just the
> packages and now you have to backup the configs separately.....normally I
> backup the whole system, but that's very space intensive.
>
> Brian Chee
>
> Sent from my iPad
> _______________________________________________
> LUAU at lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org mailing list
> http://lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org/listinfo.cgi/luau-freesoftwarehawaii.org
>
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