For servers I usually backup /etc but that depends if the server has critical files that can't be replicated easily elsewhere.
And for servers I usually have a base install which can be replicated easily. So you can just document this part in the install and other generic things performed afterwards. eg. I change the MTA to Postfix, uninstall some packages. And then for each server, I document the other packages installed. Sometimes packages are built from source so that's documented as well. So: - Backup whatever can't be replicated easily. - Document a generic install (avoids backing up almost everything). - Document custom packages or programs installed. So my backups per server are very small. For backups I use SafeKeep (http://safekeep.sourceforge.net/). - Julian ________________________________ From: Jason Axelson <bostonvaul...@gmail.com> To: LUAU <luau@lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org> Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 10:39 PM Subject: Re: [LUAU] Thread on merits of package backups I think that a list of packages along with backups of /home and /etc will get you about 95% of the system that you need typically. Although sometimes you might have something important that wasn't installed via the package manager or installs itself along with configuration is something like /opt By the way for those unfamiliar with Linux's file system layout should check out 'man hier' Jason On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 9:17 PM, Brian Chee <c...@hawaii.edu> wrote: > So here is a snip from a Linux reference, what I'd like to ask is how well > folks think this will actually work? > > Being able to backup as small amount of info possible is a very good > thing... > *APT: Backup and restore your software* > > *Hopefully you're already backing up your documents in case of a crash, but > did you know that there's no need to back up your whole system? Because of > the way that Linux stores all its programs inside a package manager, it's a > cinch to create a list of all the packages you have installed, then feed > that back into your package manager when you want to restore your system. > To do this, use the dpkg command to save your selections to a backup file, > then read them back in at a later date. Note that you must performapt-get > dselect-upgrade after setting your selections to make the changes happen.* > *dpkg --get-selections > backup_file > dpkg --set-selections < backup_file > apt-get dselect-upgrade* > > > What do you folks think? Will this get 100% of the system info, or just the > packages and now you have to backup the configs separately.....normally I > backup the whole system, but that's very space intensive. > > Brian Chee > > Sent from my iPad > _______________________________________________ > LUAU@lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org mailing list > http://lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org/listinfo.cgi/luau-freesoftwarehawaii.org > _______________________________________________ LUAU@lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org mailing list http://lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org/listinfo.cgi/luau-freesoftwarehawaii.org _______________________________________________ LUAU@lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org mailing list http://lists.freesoftwarehawaii.org/listinfo.cgi/luau-freesoftwarehawaii.org