How to ease re-install "upgrades"?

[Mike Bartman]

At 08:43 PM 5/18/04 +0100, James Wilkinson wrote:
>Mike Bartman wrote:
>> Speaking of which, what tricks do people have for easing an "upgrade"
>> that's done by installing a fresh copy of a newer system?  Upgrade installs
>> often only work for adjacent, or almost adjacent, versions...
><snip>
>> ...but making sure you didn't miss
>> anything before you wipe the old setup is nice.  Having to dig it out of
>> backups takes time.
>
>Practically all of that lives in /etc, which should not be large. Copy
>all of /etc into your home directory before upgrading.

Ok, sounds like a good start.  A fair bit of stuff is in /var
too...depending on what version you are running (named had its setups there
at one point, and the default web file stuff is there I think too...at
least in RHL 7.2)

>Consider what you've installed yourself: make a rule that it goes into
>/usr/local or opt. You could make /opt a symlink to /usr/local/opt, and
>/usr/local a separate filesystem: that way the installer doesn't need
>to touch it.

I've been keeping the RPMs in my personal home directory, so
re-installation isn't all that rough, but it would be nice if you didn't
have to do that.

>Make a policy decision about where your system scripts go.
>
>Make sure /var/spool/mqueue and /var/spool/mail (or equivalents) are
>empty.

Good idea.

Thanks for the tips!

-- Mike Bartman
==========================================================================
The Boulder Pledge: "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything
offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message. Nor will I
forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings
to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the
online community."
==========================================================================