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Date:      Sat, 20 Jan 2001 11:35:04 -0600
From:      "Shawn Barnhart" <swb@grasslake.net>
To:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Trashed /var, fixing /var/db/pkg
Message-ID:  <005b01c08307$5335d320$b8209fc0@marlowe>

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Due to a bezel-power switch misalignment, my 4.2-STABLE /var partition got
trashed.  There wasn't a backup of it to restore from, but the data loss was
minimal (/var/mail, mainly) .  I recreated the directory tree per another
4.2-STABLE box and I think I've managed to squelch all the error messages
about missing dirs.

The one bit I'm most interested in fixing is /var/db/pkg, which contains a
lot of tasty information about the ports I've installed.  With this
gone/broken, maintaining the ports I use seems kind of problematic.

How can I rebuild this?  I think I have a couple of options, and I'm curious
which'd be the "right" way to do this:

1) Using /usr/ports/distfiles as a guide, copy the matching entries from
another 4.2-STABLE box of near identical vintage.  Some minor risk of
variation, but both boxes were built within days of each other and I don't
think the ports I've installed are terribly in terms of their rate of
change.  This ensures that I'm not actually overwriting any existing ports.

2) Using the distfiles as a guide, go through and remake and reinstall each
port. This should rebuild /var/db/pkg entries with 100% accuracy, but I'm
also worred that it will trash or overwrite existing config files.

Which is the best option?

(1) Seems the fastest although it has the slight risk that some port I've
installed differs in file content or layout and may overwrite my existing
config.

(2) Seems the most accurate, although it'd be big drag to rebuild the ports
right just to get my config files clobbered on reinstall.  As a general rule
do port builds respect existing config files, or do they just clobber them?




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