[SGVLUG] Idea for Thursday: Stump the Chumps

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message-----
>  Dustin Laurence
> On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 02:48:32PM -0700, Emerson, Tom wrote:
> > Here's one -- how does one actually go about recovering 
> > from a backup?

> Do you have a machine with this exact problem?  Is it 
> something we can either fix or hose completely live in front 
> of witnesses at the meeting?

I sortof have it -- ironically, it is my minister's machine (no, not the
guy in the aformentioned "discussion")  The actual case is this:

  SuSE 10.0 is installed; set for automatic "backups" on Sunday and
Monday nights
  -- Sunday is a SYSTEM backup (all files not directly "included" in
packages)
  -- Monday is the USER backup (/home/pastorskip)

  "backups" are .tgz files containing tar/tgz "sub" files (at least,
that's the variant I chose); supposedly, "three" backups per type are
maintained

  ** the hard drive has started to "fail" **

  BRAND new hard drive installed (approx 2.5x the original capacity),
SuSE 10.1 installed from PURCHASED cd'S  (on sale same as the drive
was... About half off)

Restoring /home wasn't difficult (literally, the only thing he's been
using it for has been an e-mail client, so it wasn't much more than
restoring /home/user/.kde/share/apps/kmail/<maildir> )

Restoring "system information" is a little trickier -- seems the
"default install" of products from 10.0 to 10.1 is different (had to go
back and install "fetchmail" installed, for instance, or else I "forgot"
that I installed fetchmail for 10.0 manually as well...)

I also don't remember how I configured postfix/amavix/spamassassin to
keep his inbox clean (and as he was "down" for a week, he ended up with
2600+ new spam messages in his inbox once I got fetchmail working)  I
*know* that's buried in the system backup, but I *don't* know what the
impact would be to simply "restore" the old .config files (say if a
parameter changed...)

I could get access to the old drive and/or backup  (I'd rather not lug
in the machine, but I might be able to enable ssh access to it...)