From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JZecR-0007Kc-4Y for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:00:39 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id EAE83E0AAA; Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:00:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp1.hushmail.com (smtp1.hushmail.com [65.39.178.133]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1DB1E0AAA for ; Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:00:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp1.hushmail.com (localhost.hushmail.com [127.0.0.1]) by smtp1.hushmail.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 636BE11436 for ; Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:00:28 +0000 (UTC) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:48:09 -0500 From: forgottenwizard To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] what isn't required to boot a system/what can be trimmed from a backup Message-ID: <20080313034809.GA3667@localhost> Mail-Followup-To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org References: <20080312041012.GA6116@localhost> <1205372890.14736.84.camel@orpheus> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1205372890.14736.84.camel@orpheus> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-09) X-Archives-Salt: c2999a16-4eea-4477-b821-b19eadec8e8b X-Archives-Hash: c0d30b5700ffcc912e7800d680d0dac8 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