On 11:18 Thu 13 Mar , Iain Buchanan wrote: > > On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 23:10 -0500, forgottenwizard wrote: > > define "unneeded". This is highly system dependant, as everyone puts > important files all over the place. > Things I would lose if I backed them up. Doing a prior backup, some files in /proc caused me problems, and rsync refused to delete anything in the following pass. > > from the subject line I assume you want to be able to restore a bootable > system? If so, you may need to back up more than just filesystems. > What about the partition table and the master boot record? You can back > up the mbr to a file by using dd: > $ sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr.img bs=512 count=1 > (replace hda with your boot drive). > The table, mbr, and partition table I'm not worried about. Those can be easily repaired (or replaced, depending on how one wants to do it)
> In terms of Gentoo, you can strip out /var/tmp /usr/portage /home and > possibly /opt. Probably some /var subdirs too like /var/log /var/www > etc and some /usr subdirs like /usr/games /usr/include /usr/src etc. > > I'd say you _need_ /dev /proc and /sys. I'd like to know why. Some of the files in /proc change often, and cause rsync a problem. sys doesn't cause these problems, though. > > If you _really_ want to know for sure, turn on the atimes option in > fstab for all your partions, then reboot and do a bit of stuff (log in, > ssh, etc). Then use `find` to find all files that were accessed. > Something like this: > > * edit /etc/fstab, delete noatime (replacing it with "defaults" if > no other options remain) > * $ touch /var/tmp/reference > * $ shutdown -r now > * log in, look around > * find / -anewer /var/tmp/reference > > The output from the last command will be everything you _need_ to boot. > > Ideally, when backing up /proc /dev and /sys, do so from a cleanly > shut-down system. > > HTH, I'm trying to do this with the system booted up, because doing a daily sync like that would be a bit of a pain. -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
