On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 21:55:15 +0100
tito via Dng <dng@???> wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2025 07:13:55 +1100
> terryc <terryc@???> wrote:
>
> > Due to a few recent boxen failures, I need to repair my mailer, which
> > has to be carried out by the old sneaker-net to move required packages
> > onto a cloned mailer. Hence my request in the subject.
> >
> > The back story is I cloned my mailer running on spining rust to a nvme
> > just under a year ago as a backup/recovery method, but my cloning method
> > was insufficient for a smooth boot up and now I need to
> > repair it. The boot up is missing the bit that creates all those
> > 'recent' systems like /proc /sys and others(?).
> >
> > ~20 years of just installing Debian/Devuan ontonewish hardware means
> > I've forgotten all that knowledge of patching systems to tweak a bit
> > more life out of them. Also, the nvme contains the only copy of the
> > knowledge of aliases and access files for sendmail.
> >
> > Either my web-fu is also badly shot now, but the urls from search
> > engines are trash and if this is the "knowledge" that AI engines are
> > built on, all is explained.
> >
> > TIA.
> > terryc
> Hi.
> what I would do absolutely untested:
>
> 1) create a clone (with dd ?) of the nvme to another disk for experimenting
> 2) boot the system with the devuan/debian live cd or installer
> 3) open a shell
> 4) mount the nvme to a directory e.g. /mnt
> 5) bind mount /proc to /mnt/proc, /sys to /mnt/sys, /dev to /mnt/dev (did I forget some?)
> 6) as root chroot /mnt/
> 6bis) make a copy of /mnt/etc just in case some conf file gets clobbered in the recover process
> 7) set up networking would help
> 8) run: dpkg --get-selections | cut -f1 > list.txt to create a list of installed packages
> 9) run: for i in $(cat list.txt) ; do apt install --reinstall $i; done
> (or if no network use the list to download all packages and run
> for i in $(cat list.txt) ; do apt install --reinstall ./$i; done)
10) check the entries in /mnt/etc/fstab and fix the blkids (check the output of blkid)
10bis) re-run grub-install /dev/???
10ter) re-run update-grub
> 11) re-run update-initramfs -u -k all
> 12) exit chroot and cd /
> 13) umount /mnt/proc, /mnt/sys, /mnt/dev, /mnt
> 14) reboot and remove livecd
> 15) hope for the best, if it works redo on nvme or clone to nvme
>
> Now I hope the list members will tell you why this is a very bad idea
> or which super-obvious step I have overlooked or forgotten.
>
> Ciao,
> Tito
>
>
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