On 2018-03-22, Adam Funk  wrote:
> On 2018-03-21, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:57:35 +0000, Adam Funk wrote:
>>
>>> Well, you also have to identify & update any customized config files.
>>> I keep a list of the /etc files that I've modified, but I can't swear I
>>> haven't missed any out.
>>>
>> Even better, why not keep copies of the modified files? I do that and
>> keep them in the same place as my additional packages list.
>
> I have a daily backup of /etc anyway, so last time I did a
> reinstallation, I unpacked that somewhere else and diffed it against
> the new /etc to look for things I'd missed.  Of course, a back up of
> *only* the customized files would be even more useful --- & subject to
> the "forgot to include it" snag.
>
>
>>> You also need to add the user accounts to a clean install with the right
>>> id numbers if you're using an external drive.
>>>
>> That's quite easy to do:
>>
>> Manually.
>>=========
>> After you've flopped the contents of /home back in place, login as root.
>> "ls -l /home" shows you the user numbers, so use one of the user
>> maintenance utilities to add the users back, specifying the appropriate
>> user number for each login directory. I normally did this with the Fedora
>> system-config-users graphical program.
>>
>> Scripted
>>========
>> Use groupadd and useradd followed by chpasswd to recreate any special
>> groups, set up the users and reset the passwords. This is scripted.
>
> Also a good idea.

For managing /etc, it's reasonably easy to use a form of SCM to
maintain a record of changes over time.  When customizing a new
distribution or release, it can be useful to do a diff of the
changes you made to the file on the previous release, comparing
the initial (distribution-supplied) content vs. your final
content.  That provides a reasonably reliable idea of what
changes you would want to make on the new release.

--
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@jacob21819.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

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