Re: Which /var/ contents are disposable

["Karl E. Jørgensen" <karl.jorgensen@nice.com>]

On 11/01/12 18:13, T o n g wrote:

Hi, 

Which /var/ contents are disposable?
I mean, for contents in var/backups/ var/log/ var/mail/ var/tmp/ etc, if 
I don't backup them, when doing a *full* system restore, will there be 
any problem?

Any more folders I can add to above list?

  

This will be useful for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

For the purposes of doing a full system restore, I believe it should be safe to NOT back up:

• /var/cache - stuff that can be re-generated if needed.
  
• /var/lock - run-time lock files. IIRC it starts out empty upon boot anyway
  
• /var/run - pid files and the like
  

To this list you may be able to add:

• /var/spool - but things like personal crontabs, at-jobs, printer spool files (stuff-not-yet-printed) will be lost
• /var/tmp - usually only used for saving files by editors for crash recovery
• /var/mail - if people are OK losing their mail (but they're usually not).
  

Hope this helps

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