Re: Backup before and restore after a broken dist-upgrade - what is the simplest way
On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 06:29:47PM -0600, Ramasubramanian Ramesh wrote:
> I am planning to dist-upgrade to Lenny from Etch. Obviously, I want to
> backup before upgrade and restore should the upgrade fail for what ever
> reason. I have my root/usr/var on raid1 arrays. I see that backup is
> very easy. I drop my netinst CD, boot in rescue mode, mount the mdx
> arrays and backup onto a free partition. After that I can upgrade
> realtively in peace. However upon a failed upgrade if I want to restore,
> is the restore as simple as the backup? I mean, is it as simple as drop
> in netinst cd, boot in rescue, mount the mdx arrays, format the arrays,
> and restore from the backup? I suppose I have to chroot and do a
> grub-install in the newly restored subsystem. But is that all? This look
> too simple, and I want to know if I am missing something.
Since the upgrade to Lenny will be phitzing with your disks, I would not
consider a copy onto another partition on the disk as a true backup.
You want the data completely off your box. Do what you do in
preparation for disaster which requires a bare-metal reinstall.
Personally, I backup /root/, /etc/, /home/, /var/local/, /usr/local/,
/srv/, (tarballs) as well as the output of:
aptitude search '~i!~M'
the list of manually installed packages
df
a max-depth=1 du
the partition table (with sfdisk so that I can feed it right back in
easily).
I send them over to another box and/or put it on media.
You also want a copy of Etch's installation manual (and at least
netinst.iso if not CD1), and ditto for Lenny. Either have the manual
printed out or available on a second computer.
If you assume that the upgrade will totally hose your computer for the
next 5 days, you should be paranoid enough that the upgrade will run
flawlessly. :)
Doug.
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