On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 05:15:59 -0500, Dan wrote in message
<Z4DzX4HO31TSUhRj@???>:

> On Jan 09, 2025, Walter Dnes wrote:
> > Thanks for the replies. Next questions...
> >
> > [...]
> > 2) I've got "sudo" sort of working. It still needs me to enter my
> > user password before proceeding. Is this standard or am I doing
> > something wrong? I've "asked Mr. Google" and added "waltdnes" to
> > group sudo, as well as making a change in /etc/suders vith
> > "visudo".
>
> requiring your password for 'sudo' is standard practice. Are you
> implying you want to perform root tasks as 'waltdns' WITHOUT password
> confirmation?
>
> >
> > 3) What critical portions of the system should I back up regularly?
> > Right now I expect that it should be something like...
> >
> > * /etc
> > * /root
> > * /home/user2
> > * /home/waltdnes

..you wanna split that up further into a banking user, a web
browser user allowing cookies etc tracking for idiotically
naive web browsing, a web browser user allowing cookies etc
tracking nicely down /dev/null "for idiot proof web browsing",
and a brand spanking new throw-away one-time web browser user
allowing cookies etc tracking firmly down /dev/null thru VPN's
for controversial stuff like porn and restoring democracy and
restoring the global climate...

...with their /home/porn$(fortune |md5sum |cut -c -9) spending
their entire lifetime in ram disk, writing only there and into
/dev/null. Found anything you wanna keep? Just ssh in from
e.g. /home/pornhistory and grab whatever you wanna keep with
scp or rsync.

>
> Yes, No, Yes, Yes.
>
> "/root" is the homedir for the "root" user. I wouldn't expect any
> actual data there, especially given your above comment about using
> sudo.

..root's command line history, package management history and
config change history warrants rsync cron jobs, IMNTHO, say
into /home/configtracker, on both boxes.

> >
> > I want to run with 2 machines, with one being a "near-hot-backup"
> > updated occasionally so that if the main machine fails
> > catastrophically, I lose a few days of stuff at worst.

..why lose days, when you can cut that loss to minutes?

..if you worry about losing stuff into "too frequent back-ups",
check out git style backup storage systems, these allows fetching
mistakenly deleted files by restoring them from git style history.

..and, I'm the wrong guy to ask git questions, I just happen
to know it has been done with git and some clue glue. ;o)

> rsync and a cronjob? Though I wouldn't "backup" from A/etc to B/etc
> (or the other directories), rather something like "A/etc" to
> "B/backups/A/etc".
>


--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.