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Date:      Wed, 8 Jun 2005 23:14:10 -0400
From:      John Von Essen <john@essenz.com>
To:        "<hackers@freebsd.org> <hackers@freebsd.org>" <hackers@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Sydney Hole & Owen Huffaker <sydoh@fidalgo.net>
Subject:   Re: Version 4.4 sick and dying
Message-ID:  <ed6603cf9643828ee7f7e202c154030d@essenz.com>
In-Reply-To: <000001c56bdd$58f5b7d0$24ce3442@huffakerw0m4f2>
References:  <000001c56bdd$58f5b7d0$24ce3442@huffakerw0m4f2>

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If I understand your email correctly, you were able to get all the 
files tar'd up from the original system. And you put those tar's on a 
second hard drive that you mounted in the dying system, then a day 
later, the primary boot drive died. So right now you have a 
non-bootable drive formated with ufs containing tars of original 
system.

If you want to salvage the old system, you could replace the boot 
drive, then re-install version 4.4. Then grab the tar files off the 
second drive.

If you cant get 4.4 ISO off the FBSD ftp servers, I can send you the 
ISO's (I have all the CD's going back to 3.0).

However, as others have mentioned, you dont need to go that route, 
especially if all this box did was run apache. As long as you can get 
the apache data (just htdocs or the whole apache install), you can just 
do a fresh install of 4.11, then dump your 4.4 apache files. (if your 
lucky, the entire apache install might be under /usr/local/apache - so 
you just have to copy one directory) Start apache binaries and your 
done. Or install 5.4, install and build a new apache from source or 
ports, then just copy over the htdocs and conf directories.

As you mention in your email.... I would NOT recommend untarring your 
4.4 files into a active 4.5 system. It only takes a few things to 
create a mess. Much easier just starting from scratch and restore 
apache, or install 4.4.

-john von essen

On Jun 7, 2005, at 11:50 PM, Sydney Hole & Owen Huffaker wrote:

> Hello,
> Wonder if you can give me a little advise.
>
>  I don't have a background in freebsd.  I maintained a Unix V5 system 
> years
> ago and I have been called in to look at an installation that is 
> ailing.
> This system is a 4.4 version that is acting as a web server.  It has 
> some
> web functionality on it which was refreshing unusually slow.  They 
> called me
> and I came in to look at it.  I noticed that the logon was slow either
> directly on the console or through telnet.  I suspected a hard drive 
> issue.
> Since the system had been running for some time, I shut it down and I 
> ran a
> hard drive test (Fujitsu drive and ran the proprietary fujitsu 
> program) and
> it failed. No backup and no tape drive.   They happen to have a few BSD
> books around so I figured out how to add a disk in place of the cdrom 
> and I
> partition it with sysinstall.  Then I used TAR and I copied all of the 
> file
> systems to this new hard drive with exception of swap.  Also I used the
> sysinstall and looked at the labels of the main (failing) drive and 
> copied
> down all the sizes of the slices.  I used a bsd 4.5 version on a 
> separate
> machine I had lying around and was able to partition and slice/label a 
> brand
> new drive with the same sizes as the old drive.  My intentions were to 
> copy
> the files to the new drive and then plug it in somehow.  I thought I 
> had
> some time.  This all happened on Monday.
>
> Today the drive crashed.  I am wondering what the best way to proceed. 
>  If I
> am thinking (but really sort of guessing) about this correct, the new
> machine has a 4.5 install on it and a drive that is sliced and labeled 
> as
> per the original. I know this because during the install it let me do 
> the
> partition and label and I took advantage of the opportunity.   Does it 
> make
> sense that I could put the backup drive in the new machine, and then 
> mount
> it, copy all the files to the drive I partition and then maybe put the 
> drive
> that I copied all the stuff to back in the original machine?  But I 
> don't
> know if I am going to run into trouble with existing files from the 4.5
> install if they get overlayed or its going to be a big mess.
>
> I also noticed in one of the books about a fixit program on the cd.  
> Would
> it be best to use that, mount both drives (newly partitioned and the 
> backup)
> and copy stuff that way.  The books don't go into the fixit much, just
> summary info.
>
> I am going to try this tomorrow morning and wondered if you might have 
> some
> good advise.
>
> I do have a copy of BSD 4.5 and 5.o from a FreeBSD Unleashed book by 
> Michael
> Urban and Brian Tieman.  I also have the absolute BSD by Michael Lucas.
>
> Regards,
> Owen
>
>
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