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Old 01-06-2009, 04:27 PM   #1
nagendra_pratap_sing
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When to repair and when to reinstall?


Under what circumstance would I repair a linux system and to what degree of damage? I know that it is better to reinstall a system that has been root kitted. What are the other good candidates for reinstall?

AFAIK going through kickstart script and transferring /etc config scripts should recreate most of the old system and then old data can be moved to a new, fresh machine.

(I did find a similar post on this forum but that is geared towards slackware which is not in the same league as RH/CentOS)
 
Old 01-06-2009, 04:30 PM   #2
jailbait
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I never reinstall. If the damage is large then I restore from backup. Restoring from backup is far easier than reinstalling and then adding all of the configuration changes I have made since the initial install.

--------------------
Steve Stites

P.S. Also reinstalling does nothing to recreate lost user data. For lost user data you need to restore from backup.

Last edited by jailbait; 01-06-2009 at 04:34 PM.
 
Old 01-06-2009, 08:16 PM   #3
ErV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nagendra_pratap_sing View Post
Under what circumstance would I repair a linux system and to what degree of damage? I know that it is better to reinstall a system that has been root kitted. What are the other good candidates for reinstall?
It depends on distribution and system configuration. In my opinion reinstallation makes sense only in case of massive loss of system files. For example, reinstall makes sense if:
1) All files were accidentally deleted.
2) /usr or /lib were accidentally deleted.
3) Harddrive is overwritten with random data.
4) Filesystem messed up by custom script (massive move/rename of really large amount (10000+) of files with no hope to revert damage)

Accidentally deleting /home is not one of those cases.
To restore most of old system after full reinstall you'll need to keep /etc and /home, so formatting your entire harddrive during reinstallation isn't always a good idea.
 
Old 01-06-2009, 11:07 PM   #4
nagendra_pratap_sing
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By "old data can be moved to a new, fresh machine" I meant using my backups or data recovered.

But I am pleased with the answers for now. Thanks to both the posters.
 
Old 01-06-2009, 11:17 PM   #5
r3sistance
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It's really gunna rely on several factors depending on the usage of the machine. For example with a web server, if it's quicker to just re-install then take the data off of back-ups then it's going to be the answer that you re-install and go to back-up data. On the otherhand if it's a home PC and you are interested in delving into a damaged file system for experience or just sheer joy of geekiness then that is not going to be an instant re-install... it may not be a re-install at all. It's really a situtational based question rather then one of the actual FS damage.

Personally jumping into corrupted data is not something I ever like doing so if things are starting to get crippled I would personally almost always re-install.
 
  


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