On Fri, 26 May 2000, Federico Sevilla III wrote:
> 1. Set apart a partition or a separate drive to carry your data
> temporarily.
As a rule, I set up a /home partition separate from /, /usr, /var. I
sometimes put up /opt, but generally having /home in a separate partition
saves you the trouble of backing up /home then restoring every time you do
a system change/upgrade/whathaveyou.
> 2. Back up all data and configuration files for services that matter to
> you. Great opportunity to finally clean up your system and go back to
> basics by keeping only the essential.
If the distribution you're using follows FSSTND, then it would be safe to
backup /etc and use these as base configs for your new setup.
> 3. Wipe out your system. Great opportunity to rethink your partitioning.
Partitioning is really something most people new to *nix neglect to think
through. Doing a 'du -s /*/' on an existing production server will help
you get a feel of where you stash most of your files. Keep an eye on your
tree organization. I tend to favor a small / (40M is usually enough) but
remember that /tmp has to be on / so leave enough breathing space here for
applications that use /tmp a lot. I end up giving / 60M just to be sure. A
big /usr depending on what applications I deploy on the target machines, a
good sized /var for all those quickly growing log files and other spool
monsters. A generous /home depending on available space and budget
constraints ;) and usually a humongous /opt where I stash downloads and
shared files I don't want to lose in a system upgrade.
Oh... of course your swap partition is important. I don't buy the old
rule of thumb of 2x your physical RAM. This really depends on how much RAM
you have now and your actual usage patterns. I'll leave this topic up for
further discussion. Profiling your usage comes into the picture here.
> 4. Install from scratch. Again a great opportunity for going back to
> basics. Install only what you need.
Yes. A mere 40M will do for a slim but useable install. :)
> 5. Use your backup configuration files to configure your newly installed
> services.
Sometimes old backup configuration files will not work with newer versions
of software, so be sure to note which pieces of software will break with
the upgrade.
> 6. Restore your backed up data and test your system.
It's pretty helpful if you actually took NOTES when installing and
configuring your old setups. And I'm not talking about online notes here.
Good old fashioned paper logbooks are VERY HELPFUL.
Pay special attention to how to backup your SQL databases properly if any.
eric
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