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Re: I broke apt and dpkg - need help



On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 02:20:31PM -0400, Robert wrote:
> On Friday 25 October 01:06, nate wrote:
> > Robert said:
> > > Help.  I just did a major patition reshuffle and I've wiped out
> > > /var/lib/apt  and also /var/cache/apt -- and now dpkg and apt are
> > > broken,  Can't reinstall them either.  Any suggestions or humorous
> > > comments welcome  :(
> >
> > does not sound serious to me. the critical stuff is in /var/lib/dpkg.
> >
> > you should just be able to re-create the directory structure:
> >
> > drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         4096 Oct 23 18:21
> > /var/cache/apt drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         8192 Oct 23
> > 18:21 /var/cache/apt/archives drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root        
> > 4096 Jun 25 10:52 /var/lib/apt drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root        
> > 4096 Aug 24 16:44 /var/lib/apt/lists drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root   
> >      4096 Oct 14 13:12
> > /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/
> >
> > and try running apt-get update see what happens
> >
> > nate
> 
> Thanks for your reply.
> 
> Sorry, should have been more explicit.  /var/lib/dpkg is gone too.   It 
> was late at night and I forgot that I had made /var a symlink to a 
> partition I was cleaning out.  So, there is nothing left of apt or dpkg 
> in /var, and only thought of it halfway throught he carnage.   
> 
> So now I guess apt knows nothing about the installed packages on my 
> system.  None of the apt commands will run without an error about 
> missing files in /var/*.
> 
> Reinstall the only solution?  Or is another copy of this info kept 
> elsewhere on the system?   Unfortunately, I  did not back up /var as 
> part of a backup strategy.  (good lesson I guess).
> 
> all the best,
> Robert_L

I take it you totally wiped everything in /var and don't have a
backup. Or do you still have file /var/backups/dpkg.status.0? 

If you are using ext2fs and haven't reformated the partition, you may
be able to recover files by mounting the partition on /mnt and using
mc "Undelete files" command. Also check
/usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/mini/Ext2fs-Undeletion.gz.

-- 
Jerome

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