Re: Backing up system customization: Is Debian packaging better than Remastersys?
Am Sonntag, 27. Januar 2013 schrieb Linux-Fan:
> But I am still not fully satisfied with this solution because making a
> live-DVD out of the currently-running system has some issues:
>
> 1. If I ever need to re-install my system and do not have the
> remastersys-DVD available, I will have trouble restoring all the
> custom configuration.
> This could e.g. happen if an update to a new debian release fails
> reproducibly.
Maybe I am too old school for this:
For > 8 years I just have my Debians and I rsync them to another disk.
In case one goes kaboom I take that disk, rsync them back and be done with
it (of course this includes partitioning and installing boot loader again).
This approach has not failed me once.
(Writing this from a Debian installation that I just copied from my backup
disk yesterday in order to remake the root partition BTRFS with larger node
and leaf size, which was not possible, due to the kernel in GRML 2012-05 I
used was too old for these kind of games.)
I have yet also to see a Debian installation that reproducably fails to
update to the next release.
Heck, I deal with a lot of Debian machines, but I never ever saw something
like this.
Yes, in case of some special setups, there have been issues, but with some
experience with the Debian package management there so far has always been a
way out for me.
Sorry, I have no experience in this remastersys stuff.
> Recently, when I read about Debian packaging and preseeding on this
> list, I got another idea: I could package all my customization into
> some Debian packages and some virtual packages which would then install
> all software I use as dependencies. This would also make the updating
> of my i386 machines much easier: If I only changed configuration or
> such they could just update via aptitude update && aptitude full-upgrade
> or similar and if I updated some of my self-compiled software, I could
> (a) use the source-package or (b) download an i386 version that was
> cross-compiled on my amd64 machine. I would be able to have the most
> recent configuration and package selection on all three systems while
> only maintaining a common and customized repository. In order to back
> up my system I would only need to backup the repository. Live-DVDs
> could still be created with remastersys but I would no longer depend on
> them and I could safely do re-installations even changing
> Debian-releases with minor problems only. I could further divide my
> custom packages to be able to create a CD version of my system with
> limited features or such. Adding some of the customization to my
> friends' systems would also be much easier.
This may just work well, I never tried it.
I just wonder whether you are trying to over-engineer. :)
Is the configuration on all machines exactly identical?
Actually I do not do the effort.
What I have is this:
- apt-get install bzr
- cd /etc
- bzr init
- bzr add fstab hostname network/interfaces resolv.conf …
- bzr commit -m "Initial."
And in case of an error: bzr uncommit :)
I usually upgrade my systems. But on the 64-Bit switch all I did is:
- rsync -a /mnt/…/my-old-debian/etc/.bzr /etc
- bzr diff
- review which changes I like to apply again and which I like to dismiss
I also do this with dot files in my home directory.
There is also etckeeper for it, but it keeps all of /etc in VCS. I only want
to have my changes in there. Of course you can use git as well.
For my 5-6 Debian systems and for quite some customer machines this has been
fine so far. For customers with *lots* of machines something Puppet may well
make sense.
--
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
GPG: 03B0 0D6C 0040 0710 4AFA B82F 991B EAAC A599 84C7
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