Re: tar syntax and backing up

[Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 04:14:39PM +0000, Tyler Smith wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Related to another post concerning the possible demise of my
> harddrive, I thought I'd better confirm with wiser people that my
> backup plan is doing what I think it's doing.
> 
> I've got a full backup of all my important data in tar.gz files on my
> harddrive and burned onto cds. I want to backup everything that has
> been modified since the last full backup, so I use:

I would suggest, from painful experience, that in addition to your full
backup, you backup in plain text to some removeable media:
	/boot/grub/menu.lst
	/etc/ (if going to something big like USB stick)
	 	or if going to a floppy:
		/etc/fstab
		/etc/modules
		/etc/hosts
		/etc/inittab
		/etc/network/interfaces
		/etc/modutils/ (except arch)
		/etc/modprobe.d/
		/etc/resolv.conf
		if using ppp:
		/etc/ppp/
		/etc/chatscripts/
	
	output of:
		/sbin/fdisk -lu for each drive
		/sbin/sfdisk -d for each drive
		/usr/bin/dpkg --get-selections
	
	Then last (just incase drive dies now) output of:
		/bin/df --si 
		/usr/bin/du -c --si --max-depth=1 /*

Personally, I have /boot/grub/menu.lst printed out.

Good luck.

Doug.