how can I backup my debian installation?

fuzzyworm · 04-09-2004, 06:19 PM

I have just managed to get Debian to install, or rather, it's installed the base operating system, and is currently downloading the rest, but once it's finished, is there a way to backup all the files it has downloaded, so that I don't need to download them all again if I need to reinstall?

Any help would be appreciated.

johnMG · 04-09-2004, 08:57 PM

Why back them up when they are already backed up on all the Debian mirrors? :)

Back up the stuff in /etc (after you get the system set up the way you like) and /home/you (after you've got some files there to back up :).

If you really want iso's, either download them (using jigdo preferably) or buy them from someplace like abexia.

geekzen · 04-09-2004, 09:29 PM

files are all downloaded to /var/cache/apt/archive i belive. Back those up to cd, and then install with dpkg after a reinstall.

fuzzyworm · 04-10-2004, 12:09 PM

That's exactly what I was looking for, the install didn't go to plan, and I couldn't get jigdo to work, so I went for net install, but then when it went wrong, I didn't want to spend hours downloading again!!

Anyway, thanks for the help.

TigerOC · 04-10-2004, 02:22 PM

create a new directory called debs and copy the files from /var/cache/apt/archives to it then do dpkg-scanpackages /debs /dev/null | gzip > debs/Packages.gz. Ensure there are no errors and that Packages.gz has been created in /debs. The file Packages.gz contains a summary of the contents of debs. Burn /debs to a cd and this can be used by apt for install by doing apt-cdrom add.