[lug] back up /etc/passwd

[D. Stimits]

Rob Nagler wrote:

> >While keeping user login data for disaster recovery is undoubtably a
> >good idea, I don't think a list of unencrypted passwords is necessary.
>
>
> Having just restored my /etc/passwd and group after accidental
> munging, :-( I recommend nightly backups (rsync, tar, or ...) of all
> of /etc and /var.  It saved me a lot of trouble to simply restore
> these files from backup, and the setup time is trivial.
>
> ROb

I'd agree with Rob on that, at least for /etc/. It is too small to not 
back up the whole thing, and you might find snafu's like PAM settings in 
/etc/pam.d/ that you also need. As for /var/, it might take a lot of 
space, or not much, depending on whether you have SQL servers going, and 
whether you avoid copying log directories. Someone mentioned /etc/group, 
that is just one example of how easy it is to overlook something trivial.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com