Re: Backup -- what directories are important?

[Brian Servis <servis@purdue.edu>]

*- On 17 Sep, Brian Boonstra wrote about "Backup -- what directories are important?"
> Hi
> 
> 	I've got a CD-RW drive, and a hankering to back up.  I'm using a few  
> GB of space with my potato distribution, but most of that is packages that I  
> could easliy fetch again from the web if my HD crashed.  Are there any  
> comments on the following list of directories to backup?
> 
> 
> /home/
> /etc/
> <wherever the dpkg data is stored>

/var/lib/dpkg  but don't back this up if you are going to restore 
all the packages.  

> /usr/local/
> 
> 
> 	One thing I'm wondering:  if I do this, how do I restore my list of  
> packages in such a way that dpkg will go out and refetch/install them all?
> 
> 

dpkg --get-selections > install.list

My backup script runs this at the start of every backup and puts the
file in a directory that will be backed up.

Then after you have installed the base system:

dpkg --set-selections < install.list

Then fire up dselect and make sure you access method is set up. Then
update the available list and jump straight to the install.

-- 
Brian 
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Mechanical Engineering                              servis@purdue.edu
Purdue University                   http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis
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