Using the example found here: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=185, I have been backing up my desktop freebsd box. I used the gzip example, and the files that were created were placed in a samba network mounted folder.
Over the last couple days, I have been doing port upgrades to just stay up to date and one of those ports that was upgraded was xorg. It went from xorg_4.7 to 5.?. Something like that, can't rember what. When I rebooted my machine, xwindows did not launch. I have poked around, and tried different things, but never figured out why it would not launch. Point being, I wasn't to worried because I thought I could restore back.
I copied my backup of the /usr director to a thumb drive and mounted it to a sub directory on /. I then tried to perform a newfs -U to ad0s1f(/usr slice) which did not work(I beleive because this slice was still mounted). Even though I now I missed a step, I then umounted that slice and tried to perform a zcat <backup file name> | restore -rf. zcat was not found. Ok, I can understand this. Not an issue. the /usr slice was no longer mounted which contains the binaries.
sooooooooooooooo, how the bloody heck do a restore of the /usr directory then? I have seen some references here of the fixit boot floopy? hu? Right now, I don't have one of them. Is this the route I need to follow???
Ok, looking here in the handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/backup-basics.html
um, can we do this some way off a cd????? If I create the bootable cd/floopy, am I going to be able to run zcat/gzip -d to uncompress the dump backup I created?
I'm about ready to do the "if in doubt, throw the p.o.s. out" restore procedure. ie: reload FreeBSD from scratch. But I really would like to know the correct way to restore from backups.
Over the last couple days, I have been doing port upgrades to just stay up to date and one of those ports that was upgraded was xorg. It went from xorg_4.7 to 5.?. Something like that, can't rember what. When I rebooted my machine, xwindows did not launch. I have poked around, and tried different things, but never figured out why it would not launch. Point being, I wasn't to worried because I thought I could restore back.
I copied my backup of the /usr director to a thumb drive and mounted it to a sub directory on /. I then tried to perform a newfs -U to ad0s1f(/usr slice) which did not work(I beleive because this slice was still mounted). Even though I now I missed a step, I then umounted that slice and tried to perform a zcat <backup file name> | restore -rf. zcat was not found. Ok, I can understand this. Not an issue. the /usr slice was no longer mounted which contains the binaries.
sooooooooooooooo, how the bloody heck do a restore of the /usr directory then? I have seen some references here of the fixit boot floopy? hu? Right now, I don't have one of them. Is this the route I need to follow???
Ok, looking here in the handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/backup-basics.html
Second, determine that the boot and fix-it floppies (boot.flp and fixit.flp) have all your devices. The easiest way to check is to reboot your machine with the boot floppy in the floppy drive and check the boot messages. If all your devices are listed and functional, skip on to step three.
um, can we do this some way off a cd????? If I create the bootable cd/floopy, am I going to be able to run zcat/gzip -d to uncompress the dump backup I created?
I'm about ready to do the "if in doubt, throw the p.o.s. out" restore procedure. ie: reload FreeBSD from scratch. But I really would like to know the correct way to restore from backups.