How to recover with a full backup?

[Volker Wysk]

Am Samstag, 9. Dezember 2017, 14:43:42 CET schrieb Chris Green:
> On Sat, Dec 09, 2017 at 03:26:29PM +0100, Volker Wysk wrote:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > I'm making preparations for the case when I can no longer boot my machine, 
> > and I'm not able to recover with the GRUB recovery mode. 
> > 
> > I have a full backup, which includes the system as well as personal data.
> > 
> > When I can't recover, I would install the system anew, from the Kubuntu 
> > installation ISO. Then I would unpack my backup, in some directory /backup. 
> > Now, how to get a running system again, from that? Could I just replace 
> > the top level directories with ones from the backup? Such as: 
> > 
> > cd /
> > mv /bin bin.tmp
> > bin.tmp/mv backup/bin bin
> > rm -r bin.tmp
> > 
> I think the above would be a recipe for disaster!

That's not so good.. :(
 
> Work out what you actually *need* to back up.  I.e. what areas have
> personal files and what areas have customisation.

Why not backup and restore everything, if that's what's desired?


> Basically this *should* mean that what you need to back up is:-
> 
>     /home - all personal files and confguration
>     /etc - there may be some system-wide configuration changes here, but only a few
>     /usr/local - you might have added some things here

There's also /usr/share/dovecot/ and /var/www/html/nextcloud on my system... And there might be more.

 
> The to restore a working system you:-
> 
>     Install the new system
>     Copy the backup /home over /home (or move like you suggest above)
>     restore /usr/local
>     Check what files are different in /etc and copy or not as required
> 
> There may be a few other areas to backup/restore, e.g. mysql databases
> and web pages in /srv if you run a web server.

I still can't see why this would be better than reverting everything to the last state. Wouldn't this be easier und safer?

Bye
Volker