[aclug-L] What happened in the 20 APR 1999 meeting....

["spiff" <spiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I figured I would sit down and fire off a few notes about the meeting
to get a thread started so feel free to add what I missed etc.

First off, I want to point out I am sending this via NT just cause I know it
will get under a certain someone's skin (no names mentioned but he is also
supposed to provide us all with these notes).

Ok, if you missed this evening's meeting you will most likely want to know
that the next one you can miss is on 3 MAY 1999, same time, same place.  As
well as the other typical begging of meeting info such as the website is at
http://www.aclug.org where you can find even more information about things
going on.

Now onto the bulk of the meeting:

First off, we discussed what could be done with a rescue disk if something
were to go terribly wrong with linux.  Basically with a rescue disk you can
cover such items as changing your lilo.conf and then telling lilo you did it
by re-running lilo.  You can also mount your / in order to gain access to it
enabling you to perhaps change the /ect/passwd or /etc/shadow (depending on
whether or not you are using shadow passwords) file in case you for some
reason forgot your root password (it should be noted that making changes to
this file will only allow one to run as root without a password in order to
set a NEW one, don't forget to set a new one).

After going over a few of the basics of what can be done with a rescue disk,
one should have walked away with the knowledge that it would be wise to have
one (or a boot disk would be even better), there are a lot of things that
can be done with a rescue disk (potential security issues are at hand, but
if you leave your system in an unsecured area, what isn't an issue?), and
also a bit about using different commands with lilo.

Next we rolled onto different programs that could be used to backup data in
case of disaster.  The programs we discussed were tar, dump, and taper (well
taper was brought up briefly).

Tar pros:

it can pretty much write to any form of removable media
it has the ability to back up entire system

Tar cons:

isn't terribly "user friendly" if you what to pick out a single file on a
tape (unless you know what it is), one first has to index the tape, then
rewind, then go to the file

Dump pros:

better restoration interface
faster and more reliable
good for automated backups

Dump cons:

can't do NFS
can't do the total system all at once (only one file system at a time)

Taper:

didn't talk much about it other then it has a 4 gig limit


Ok, here is the beef on tar:

to do a basic backup the command is as follows to back up the / :

tar -cvSpf /dev/(insert tape device or whatever) /

to restore the command is as follows:

tar -xvSpf /dev/(insert tape device or whatever)

for those trying to move a file system from drive to drive the command is as
follows:

tar -cSpf - /(path) | tar -xvSpf --C /(destination)

Now, if you all really, really want, I can post the stuff about the passwd
and shadow files as well as the lilo.conf information, but I think this is
enough to digest for now.  Feel free to add to it.


Seth aka spiff aka some guy asking NT questions :P (side note you should
also remember I was asking how to reclaim linux from NT <g>)