System Backup?

[hcubed]

I've searched and read about backing up my home directory using tar, but I'm concerned about backing up more than that. Packages that I have working now may or may not be available in the future, so I want to be able to have a backup of my system, not just my home directory. Is there a way to

1) identify and backup the packages I have installed now, then at a later date (presumably after a fresh re-install) install those packages from the hard disk drive?
2) backup my entire system, config files, repository settings, everything?

Option 1 seems most practical and would probably be adequate for the peace of mind I'm looking for. I know how to do this in Ubuntu Linux, but I'm a beginner with YDL.

HCubed

[ppietro]

Is there a way to

1) identify and backup the packages I have installed now, then at a later date (presumably after a fresh re-install) install those packages from the hard disk drive?

Well - if you want a list of all the RPMs installed on your system:

rpm -qa

from a terminal window will print 'em all. If you had a copy of all of these RPMs on some storage media, then you could be assured of restoring your system. YUM uses RPMs to install - YUM is an automated RPM manager.

Most of these RPMs would be on your YDL install DVD. Any RPM installed by YUM might be located at /var/cache/yum/ - although they don't stay there very long. Otherwise, you'd have to navigate to the YUM repositories, and manually download the RPMs from there.

Also - bear in mind that RPMs, due to their interdependencies, sometimes must be installed in a certain order. But - that list of RPMs would be all that you have installed on your system, and if you had local copies, you could restore it based on that list.

2) backup my entire system, config files, repository settings, everything?

A tar archive of the /etc directory would capture most of your settings. But - it also preserves other things that might not work on a system restore. If you wanted to just backup your repository settings, do a tar archive of /etc/yum.repos.d and copy /etc/yum.conf.

Honestly - I don't bother though. I just backup my /home and /root directories, and fresh install. Once I get the repos re-configured - manually - I just use YUM to re-install stuff. Anything that isn't in YUM, I generally have in my /home or /root directories as RPMs, so I manually install those. The main thing is having /home and /root backups - that preserves your login environment and login preferences.

Cheers,
Paul

[hcubed]

Thanks, Paul, for your help. Here's what motivated my question, which may shed light on what I want to do and why.

It seems (to me anyway) the future of Linux on PS3 is quite uncertain. I have YDL 6.2 installable on storage media, so I could always reinstall the OS. The other night I struggled through getting VLC 0.9.5 working. I finally got it working, though, using ps3bodega repo and stumbling through some dependencies by trial and error.

I'm concerned that I'll get certain extra software installed such as VLC (and dependencies), have things pretty much the way I want them, then maybe a power outage or hdd failure or some other thing causes me to have to reinstall. So I reinstall the OS, but maybe then the niche of PS3-Linux fans is so small and/or the end-of-life is far enough in the past that there are not repos to get things even back to the way I had them before. I want to guard against this.

I was surprised to read what you wrote about RPMs not remaining on the hdd for very long. I'm not familiar enough with YDL or a yum-based linux to know how that works. It wasn't long ago that I learned how to do what I'm asking in Ubuntu, but YDL is not Ubuntu.

Does your initial reply to my post provide for what I'm wanting to do, or is there something else I need to be aware of? ... or is what I'm wanting to do simply not realistic?

HCubed

P.S. The yellowdog-board has been very helpful to me and I was thankful when I found an organized community that included YDL-PS3 users.

[billb]

Well I just paid the bill for ps3bodega for the next year, so we're good until then, at least.

[ppietro]

Thanks, Paul, for your help. Here's what motivated my question, which may shed light on what I want to do and why.

It seems (to me anyway) the future of Linux on PS3 is quite uncertain. I have YDL 6.2 installable on storage media, so I could always reinstall the OS. The other night I struggled through getting VLC 0.9.5 working. I finally got it working, though, using ps3bodega repo and stumbling through some dependencies by trial and error.

I'm concerned that I'll get certain extra software installed such as VLC (and dependencies), have things pretty much the way I want them, then maybe a power outage or hdd failure or some other thing causes me to have to reinstall. So I reinstall the OS, but maybe then the niche of PS3-Linux fans is so small and/or the end-of-life is far enough in the past that there are not repos to get things even back to the way I had them before. I want to guard against this.

Well - that's the issue, isn't it? Luckily, Linux on PS3 isn't Cell specific - we're running generic PowerPC code. But - I don't think the future of PowerPC Linux is looking too rosy.

Since I use Fedora Extras/Dribble/Livna, I'm pretty sure that (most) of those will be around - but I can't guarantee anything.

The other big issue with Linux on the PS3 is the non-standard hard disc. Based on the clarification you provided above, I would normally suggest that you connect a second hard drive to your PC's IDE controller and use the dd command to xerox the drive. That's nearly impossible with the PS3 - due to the PS3's weird internal disc structure. You can't swap drives like you can in a PC - at least not easily.

In your case, I would recommend using dd to archive to a file on a USB external hard drive, instead of imaging to another disc. An example that backs up a CD ROM to a file is:

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/home/sam/myCD.iso bs=2048 conv=sync

You would replace /dev/cdrom with the PS3's hard drive, and /home/sam/myCD.iso with the target on the USB drive. I'm away from my PS3 right now, so I can't supply the actual syntax.

WARNING: dd isn't for the faint of heart. If you mess up the syntax, you can erase your drive. If you decide to use this, be careful and double check your command line before you press ENTER.

I was surprised to read what you wrote about RPMs not remaining on the hdd for very long. I'm not familiar enough with YDL or a yum-based linux to know how that works. It wasn't long ago that I learned how to do what I'm asking in Ubuntu, but YDL is not Ubuntu.

It's not surprising really. Once an RPM is installed, it includes instructions on how to uninstall it as part of the installation. There's no real need to keep the RPM file itself around locally - at least as far as YUM is concerned - since the repo has the master copy.

P.S. The yellowdog-board has been very helpful to me and I was thankful when I found an organized community that included YDL-PS3 users.

Thanks! We do try to help!

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. Some folks claim that, if you are very careful, Linux on the PS3 sits at the physical end of the drive and isn't encrypted like the rest of the PS3 sectors. Theoretically, you could pop your PS3's drive into a PC, then use dd with offsets to copy that to another PS3 formatted (and partitioned for Linux) drive.

I wrote something about that here:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7306&p=37944#p37944
but - I've never tested it. Proceed with caution.

[hcubed]

Thanks again for all the help and clarification. I tend to be a freak when it comes to contingency plans, but the older I get the more I learn that so many things in life just don't allow for good contingency plans... not to my satisfaction anyway. I suppose this is the principle behind many common sayings like "that's life" or "stuff happens."

And thanks, billb, for ps3bodega for at least another year.