Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails. I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any issues? When should I change /etc/fstab? Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)? Thanks. - -- Merciadri Luca See http://www.student.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~merciadri/ - -- As soon as a man is born, he begins to die. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlArWEQACgkQM0LLzLt8MhzkGACdGWmbXmQ2DEEXETrf8mLIg1IE xckAoJyE5/n+lUJOmsg4Wc9TQHeUXyZF =ktMk -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87y5lg8trv.fsf@merciadriluca-station.MERCIADRILUCA
Re: Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste
On 15/08/12 04:05 AM, Merciadri Luca wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails. I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any issues? When should I change /etc/fstab? Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)? Thanks. - -- You can replace the drive without problems if the external drive contains a direct copy of the failed internal drive. However, that is probably not exactly the case. You need to be more explicit about what kind of backup the external drive contains. In the simplest case, let's assume that it contains a direct copy of the /home folders (i.e. if /home contains a, b c, then the external drive would have a, b c at the root level and not /home/a, /home/b /home/c). In this case, simply replacing the drive may be sufficient. However, if you are using UUIDs in /etc/fstab then you will need to replace the failed drive's UUID with the UUID for the internal unit. If you are using device names (e.g. /dev/sdb1) then you may not need to make any changes. If you are using some other form of backup, then you will need to convert it to a set of folders in the external drive, one for each user account and with the correct user ids, etc.. As for the difference between internal and external, external drives normally are regular drives in a different case (usb or eSATA instead of IDE or SATA). Taking the drive out of the case and putting into an internal drive bay is usually quite simple - it just requires a screwdriver. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/502b65ad.1000...@rogers.com
Re: Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste
On 15/08/2012 10:05, Merciadri Luca wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails. I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any issues? When should I change /etc/fstab? Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)? Thanks. - -- Merciadri Luca Hi, if your backup consists in a copy of folders/files from your /home/username and respects the standard hierarchy (backup should contains a username folder with all your files and folder in it), and if the copy method and the filesystem preserved the permissions (and eventually other attributes), you can simply plug the disk in, change the backup drive partition UUID to the one used in the fstab and be done with it. Boot your system in single user or from a live-cd, or any other linux system at hand, plug your external backup drive, read the UUID used for /home in your fstab and apply it to the external drive partition (unmounted): tune2fs -U UUID-from-the-fstab /dev/address-of-backup-drive-partition It works with labels too, use option -L instead of -U. man tune2fs is your friend. Of course you can do it the other way round, change your fstab to the new drive partition UUID or label. If the filesystem is different from the original partition you need to update the fstab accordingly in any case. If you don't use UUID's or labels in fstab, then anything can happen. It's hard to predict the name your new drive will show up with. Hope it helps. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/502b97b5.4050...@googlemail.com
Re: Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 tv.deb...@googlemail.com tv.deb...@googlemail.com writes: On 15/08/2012 10:05, Merciadri Luca wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails. I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any issues? When should I change /etc/fstab? Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)? Thanks. - -- Merciadri Luca Hi, if your backup consists in a copy of folders/files from your /home/username and respects the standard hierarchy (backup should contains a username folder with all your files and folder in it), and if the copy method and the filesystem preserved the permissions (and eventually other attributes), you can simply plug the disk in, change the backup drive partition UUID to the one used in the fstab and be done with it. Boot your system in single user or from a live-cd, or any other linux system at hand, plug your external backup drive, read the UUID used for /home in your fstab and apply it to the external drive partition (unmounted): tune2fs -U UUID-from-the-fstab /dev/address-of-backup-drive-partition It works with labels too, use option -L instead of -U. man tune2fs is your friend. Of course you can do it the other way round, change your fstab to the new drive partition UUID or label. If the filesystem is different from the original partition you need to update the fstab accordingly in any case. If you don't use UUID's or labels in fstab, then anything can happen. It's hard to predict the name your new drive will show up with. Hope it helps. Thanks for both messages. - -- Merciadri Luca See http://www.student.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~merciadri/ - -- Failure is not falling down, you fail when you don't get back up. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlAroH4ACgkQM0LLzLt8MhzajgCcDjrEaFcZCvrkyAl9YIZEEEPK v2cAoJJw82alF/+gYfB6554A7wvKTayt =NDwT -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87mx1w1eo1.fsf@merciadriluca-station.MERCIADRILUCA
Re: Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:05:24 +0200, Merciadri Luca wrote: I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails. I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any issues? Yes, provided the copy/paste operation is properly done and file permissions are restored as is. For these tasks I would avoid GUI tools (such Nautilus or another graphical file browser) and proceed with command line or using Midnight Commander. When should I change /etc/fstab? When you want. If the system is still usable and you can login and /home is under a separate partition and mounted at boot, you can copy the backed up into the new disk, ensure the perms are okay, edit the /etc/fstab accordingly and reboot. If the system is unbootable by now, you can then apply the changes from a LiveCD. Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)? That's irrelevant as you should be using UUID/ID/LABEL/PATH to name the new device in fstab ;-) Tip: never delete things that you can simply comment out (#) them, that way you always retain the old entries for future references. Greetings, -- Camaleón -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/k0gdle$anh$7...@dough.gmane.org
