Debian upgrade rollback

[Giles Orr]

2009/12/8 Darryl Moore <darryl-90a536wCiRb3fQ9qLvQP4Q at public.gmane.org>:
> Backing up so that I can restore everything is the general idea. It
> should be sufficient to look at the file timestamps and sizes to
> determine what needs to be restored. No? The only files I don't have in
> here are other subdirectories below /var/ I don't want to include them
> because they probably contain dynamic data from live databases and such.
> Backing them up with rsync while live may well break them, and I already
> have suitable backup mechanisms for this data. Are upgrades likely to
> affect files in these subdirectories? I though apt did not mess with
> files in /etc/ and /var that already exist at the time of installation
> so that they do not damage custom configurations.

Debian keeps its package lists under /var/ .  If you restore the rest
of the system but not /var/ then apt will still believe it's done an
upgrade even after you reverted the system.  That kind of
inconsistency won't be any fun at all.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
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