Backing up whole system

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 09 May 2009, Craig White wrote:
>On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 12:17 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Saturday 09 May 2009, Craig White wrote:
>> >On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 11:28 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> >> On Saturday 09 May 2009, GMS S wrote:
>> >> >What is the best and easy way to backup whole fedora 10?
>> >>
>> >> Since you picked two, best, easy, and cheap (as in free) being a given,
>> >> amanda installed from the tarball, NOT the rpms.  Easy might be
>> >> relative though as there is some setup and configuration to do before
>> >> you assign it all to the users crontab and forget it.  Trouble? 
>> >> Subscribe to amanda-users at amanda.org. This is industrial grade stuff,
>> >> used by some pretty big names.
>> >
>> >----
>> >I thoroughly disagree with this. The reason you use a package management
>> >system is to have readily packaged software so that you don't have to
>> >deal with all of the various issues created by installing from tarballs.
>> >
>> >Amanda is packaged by Fedora and if Gene feels that the packages are
>> >inadequate, he should be offering alternative packages for inclusion.
>> >
>> >Amanda is a PITA to set up and get running but so is Bacula, which is
>> >what I use these days. Any feature comprehensive backup program is a
>> >PITA to set up. But there is no reason not to use rpm packaging for
>> >either amanda or bacula.
>> >
>> >Craig
>>
>> Sorry Craig, now you are walking on ground I am very familiar with, but
>> fedora's rpm is/was incapable of handling the nuances of using only enough
>> access rights to get the job done, a vital part of the amanda security
>> model.
>>
>> When an rpm package can build a complete user from scratch, and preserve
>> the file rights exactly as they are when built from a tarball, then a
>> 'pre-canned' version of amanda rpm's that works as well as the tarball
>> might be possible.
>>
>> But lets ask the rpm experts, which I am not that well versed in.
>>
>> I don't believe it is with the current rpm packager but I'm open to
>> correction since I haven't looked at the F10 packages other than to see
>> they are old (to me that is, 2.6.0p2 is ancient).  I'm currently running
>> the May 5th date snapshot of amanda-2.6.2alpha because I play the coal
>> miners canary for amanda and have for years.  It works as expected, very
>> well.
>
>----
>Do you really believe that rpm can install every package under the sun,
>from base libraries to sophisticated daemons, create users, generate
>security contexts, create folders, set privileges, run install/uninstall
>scripts and with the help of yum, automatically resolve and install
>dependent packages and not do everything necessary to install amanda?
>
>You already stated the answer...you don't know what you're doing when it
>comes to rpm. Don't glorify your lack of knowledge with the fact that
>you're using some alpha version. The simple fact is that Fedora, like
>all Red Hat systems, like virtually all Linux distributions has a
>package management system and it doesn't make sense for you to encourage
>others to use source tarballs because you can't possibly help them with
>package management.
>
>Craig

I wasn't trying to 'glorify' my lack of knowledge, I readily admit it cuz 
everytime I get rpm figured out so it will build from a src package, the API 
changes with the next version of this hat.

However, this conversation demos that everyone has their own favorite sacred 
cow.  Yumex/yum/rpm is a good tool indeed when it works.  Emphasis on "when it 
works", which since f2's foibles, seems to be worked out pretty well now days.  
I presume the acid test would be for me to install your 2.6.0p2 and see if it 
works tonight, using my existing configuration.

But obviously it won't just install and run, since an su amanda -c "amcheck 
Daily" after the install reports no problems, and used version 
2.6.2alpha-20090505.  So I had yumex remove it.

And removing it did screw things up.  It removed my /etc/xinetd.d/amanda 
config file.  Fixed, courtesy of amanda the hard way, bare metal recover to 
/tmp using dd, then copy it back & fix the perms since bare metal methods give 
the file to root.

You may want to file a bug, the config files really should not be touched if 
they are found to exist at install, and left untouched if there is an .rpmnew
version there.

So where does the rpm install it?  Should it not find stuff in /bin before it 
looks in /usr/bin?  And in /usr/lib before it looks in /usr/local/lib (or 
libexec).??

However, my $PATH has those locations interchanged.  I don't recall re-writing 
that in the last year+ though.  Shrug...

So no doubt you will continue to use the rpms, expounding on the many virtues 
of rpm, that which I wasn't able to test quickly via a simple install, and I 
will continue to play my early warning alarm role for amanda.

It Works For Me.

-- 
Cheers Craig, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Most of the fear that spoils our life comes from attacking difficulties
before we get to them.
		-- Dr. Frank Crane