Debian upgrade rollback

[Darryl Moore]

Hmmm, while reading the debian policy manual
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ it appears that only the /etc/
subdirectory must be left alone after any manual changes.

This leaves a bit of a dilemma with regard to the /var subdirectories.

Within /var the only directories that may need to be restored (other
than for dpkg and apt-get) would be in /var/lib. I still don't think
these would change very often with upgrades. Perhaps the thing to do is
to record what files are changed here then if a rewind is needed and
there have been changes (which can't be undone), we can list the changes
before committing to doing the rewind.

Let me know if you guys still think this is a goofy idea or not.

Darryl Moore wrote:
> 
> Giles Orr wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> 
> Exactly why I was specifically including:
> 
> backup  /var/lib/apt    localhost/
> backup  /var/lib/aptitude       localhost/
> 
> 
> As well I should (but neglected to) have added:
> 
> backup  /var/lib/dpkg   localhost/
> backup  /var/backups    localhost/
> 
> but none of the other /var/ subdirectories which are for other packages.
> 
> Of course if install scripts for other packages change these
> subdirectories when they are updated (I don't think they are suppose
> too) then this whole idea wont work.
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