backup systems. (Use Amanda!!)

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Derek Martin <blu at sophic.org> writes:

> On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 01:09:07PM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> > Not really.  For example one time I submitted a patch to an
> > RPM-installed file (which was later accepted).  I planned to upgrade
> 
> There are two ways to deal with this:
> 
> 1. patch the source RPM and rebuild and re-install it.  Keep a
> repository of your custom RPMs.  This is the best solution, IMO.

That presumes there IS a SRPM to rebuild..  That is not always
the case.

> 2. rely on the fact that the RPM will be available (if it will be on a
> timely basis), and ignore the problem in the short term.

That is not always reasonable -- there was no way to know how long it
would be for a fixed RPM to become available.

> This is so simple, I don't know why I didn't think of it before.
> Probably because in my mind, this isn't really a full back-up...  But
> it works for this purpose.  Either tar or cpio will work wonderfully
> with this method.  I don't know if Amanda will (but I bet it would be
> easy to hack it to do so, if not), and most commercial software
> probably won't.

This is a good idea, but it doesn't help if you keep up with RPM
upgrades over time.  Your upgraded RPMS will slowly creep into your
backups (because the files will be newer than the install date).

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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