On Wed, 3 Dec 2025 12:14:24 +0100
Didier Kryn <kryn@???> wrote:

> Le 02/12/2025 à 21:55, tito via Dng a écrit :
> > 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?)
>
>    Maybe /dev/pts .. not sure it's necessary.

I think all /dev is created now.

A careful creation of /tmp is the only other directory I later found I
needed when I tried to run apt.