backup system files and configuration files

[Thomas Cameron]

On Wed, 2005-03-02 at 14:28 -0800, Nina Pham wrote:
> I'm trying to backup the files that I need in case the system crash then 
> I can recover the configuration and settings.  Is there any website that 
> lists all the files I needs to backup or is there a command to do the 
> backup? Thanks

In general, you can back up the /etc directory and get the majority of
the files needed to configure a duplicate system.  However, this will
only work if the system you are restoring /etc to is identical to the
one that you backed up from.

For instance, you have a machine called foo.  You have (I'm just pulling
a number out of the air) 400 packages installed on foo.  Those packages
are all configured through config files in /etc, so you back up /etc
using a command similar to 'tar jcvf /backups/etc.tar.bz2 /etc' (read
the man page for tar for more info).  You copy etc.tar.bz2 to another
machine or to tape or CD or whatever.  Then foo's hard drive tanks, no
chance of recovery.  So you put in a new drive, install the OS so that
it has exactly the same 400 packages.  You get etc.tar.bz2 onto foo's
new hard drive and restore /etc by issuing a command similar to 'tar
jxvf etc.tar.bz2 -C /' (again, see the man page for tar).  There's a
fair chance that after a reboot the system will be the same.

This does not take into account those services (BIND and MySQL come to
mind) that store data and config files in locations like /var.

Thomas