Need advice on system restoral after disk crash

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Friday 24 January 2003 07:12 pm, Bill Horne wrote:
> The good news: I started the backups early when I heard expensive noises,
> and they finished OK.

Good geek.  Here's your biscuit.

> Crashed system:
> * 486 DX, 49MB ram, 2GB SCSI HD, running Apache, SSL, Mailman, and Sendmail
> under RedHat 7.1.
>
> The "standby" system that I was going to switch to "someday":
> A Dell Pentium II, 64 MB ram, 9.3 GB SCSI drive, with an "everything"
> install of redhat 7.3.

First thoughts:  The hardware in these two systems is SO different, and the 
version of Red Hat are different enough, that I would not try to install any 
apps from the old box.  I would, however, restore the tar file to a separate 
directory on the new machine, like /oldbox.

The apps you mentioned have their config files in very well defined places.  I 
think the version of Apache and Sendmail are similar enough that you should 
be able to (AFTER BACKING UP THE EXISTING CONFIGS):
cp -a /oldbox/etc/semdmail.cf /etc/sendmail.cf
cp -a /oldbox/etc/mail /etc/mail
cp -a /oldbox/etc/httpd/conf/* /etc/httpd/conf/  
cp -a /oldbox/var/www /var/www
cp -a /oldbox/var/mailman /var/mailman

Similarly copy over /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, the network settings, home 
directories, /var/log, var/spool, cron jobs, etc.

recreate any special devices (look for symlinks in /oldbox/dev)
Check permissions
restart said services, or reboot.

That should get you 90% of the way there, no?  Make sure the paths on your old 
system match the new system, and adjust my notes if they don't match.  This 
is not meant to be a cut-and-paste solution, but a guideline from the top of 
my head.

--
DDDD   David Kramer                           http://thekramers.net
DK KD  
DKK D  "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity,
DK KD  and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."
DDDD         -Joseph Heller (1923-1999) "The Great Executive Dream"