Re: Newbie question

[Bob McClure Jr <robertmcclure earthlink net>]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 01:41:21PM -0700, Mark W. Knecht wrote:
> Mat,
>    Make sure you get some input on this before hitting 'go'. My experience
> with 'upgrades' has been that they aren't really upgrades, but that they
> really force a lot of default files back into your system.
> 
>    It might have been the way I answered questions, but files that I had
> modified in my /etc directory, for Samba and what not, were overwritten and
> I lost my edits. Now, I'm sure there were copies put somewhere, but being
> that I never have time to learn this stuff in detail, I never found them.

Anytime a RedHat update replaces a config file, it will leave the old
one as <filename>.rpmsave.  For instance, the 7.1 upgrade will
probably replace your /etc/sendmail.cf, but if you haven't customised
it, it shouldn't matter.  Similarly, if it has new config files, but
declines to replace existing ones, they will be named
<filename>.rpmnew.

It may be useful, after the upgrade, to run (as root) "updatedb" to
update the "locate" database (may take several minutes), then

  locate .rpmsave

to see what the update replaced.  Then you can either merge your
changes or just rename (say) "sendmail.cf.rpmsave" to "sendmail.cf".

>    You would probably be smart IMHO to take any modifications you've done
> and save them to CD or floppy so you can reintroduce them later.

That's a good idea, too.  In fact, my regular backups include four
directory trees: /etc, /var, /home, and /root.

> Mark

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.            | Aren't you glad you're not getting
Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.   | all the government you pay for now?
robertmcclure earthlink net |