Debian-Ubuntu weakness to filesystem corruption recovery

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On 5/13/06, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 08:43:15PM +0200, chantra wrote:
> > I found something wrong with the way debian handled backups for
> > directories like /var/lib/dpkg.
> >
> > /etc/cron.daily/standard use to save it to /var/backups
> > but then *what happens when /var get corrupted* ?
> > Do we have to lose variable datas and the whole system, or should we be
> > able to keep the system and just deal with the /var bit?
>
> The automatic backups of /var/lib/dpkg are only meant to defend against
> bugs in dpkg. To cope with filesystem corruption, you should institute
> your own proper backup scheme.
>

I think the OP had a valid insight. /etc/cron.daily/standard does backup
several files, and for a reason - because they're important to keep the
system running. Keeping a backup on the same machine is not ideal, but in
many cases, there aren't many options available (notebooks, for example).

The insight is: if we are going to make a backup inside the same system, we
should do it in a separate place. It seems to me that backing up files that
are inside /var inside /var itself is *less* safe than storing the backup on
any other place.

The problem is, in these days of really big drives, many people just keep
everything into one partition - and in these cases they are out of luck
anyway. So the solution (to keep the backup inside /root) is not actually a
solution for most people.

One possible way to defend agains this is to suggest, at partitioning time,
that a small partition should be created just for backup purposes. For
instance - even a 100 MB /backup partition can really save the day in many,
many cases. I'm not aware if this solution was discussed before (I guess yes
because it seems way too obvious).

Going a little bit further... the /backup partition can be installed on a
flash disk, or even on a remote filesystem mounted via something like HTTP
or SSH... that would make for a really convenient & simple backup
procedure...

-- 
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com
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