Yesterday I had to restore my system out of an lvm snapshot backup created with cpio

cpio -idv --no-absolute-filenames < ${backup_file}

I allready used those backups for different restore operations - but not for the root filesystem itself. What happend to me was that the cpio version provided by the rescue system wasn't able to preserve the directory permission.

Original:

root@mephisto /var/spool/postfix # l
total 76
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-06-03 10:55 active/
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-06-03 09:18 bounce/
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-05-18 12:34 corrupt/
drwx------ 17 postfix root     4096 2010-06-01 08:40 defer/
drwx------ 17 postfix root     4096 2010-06-01 08:40 deferred/
[...]

After restore:

root@mephisto ...ckup/mnt/root_backup/var/spool/postfix # l
total 76
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-06-03 11:02 active/
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-06-03 11:02 bounce/
drwx------  2 postfix root     4096 2010-06-03 11:02 corrupt/
drwxr-xr-x 17 root    root     4096 2010-06-03 11:02 defer/
drwxr-xr-x 17 root    root     4096 2010-06-03 11:02 deferred/
[...]

So my suggestion - don't use cpio! Use tar instead.

Today I invested some time to make the LDAP interface of thunderbird suitable for me to work with. The main problem is the missing write support. As I find the jxplorer a really cool tool with an appropriate license I've decided to use it also for my address book management. Please visit thunderbird ldap if you feel interested.

Yes I am using Mac OS X (ATM snow leopard ak 10.6) on my MacBook Pro. I've to admit that I am not a big Mac OS fan and my work flow is much smoother on linux. But Here is a short list and description of software I am using and configuration steps I've done. (just to document them and to not forget them - perhaps it's also interesting for somebody else)

Software

• iTerm: That's the terminal program of my choice. I don't think I've to explain to much - it is pretty simple but yet powerful.

• MacGPG2: is an allready bundled and working gpg distribution. It provides you with the gpg-agent and a mac os tool to enter the passphrase.

• Thunderbird: I am using Thunderbird (and not Mail) because I am used to it. I've tried Mail and it's not bad but I am slower and I'd need a second configuration. As interface to gnupg I am using eingmail. At this point I've to say once more that I'd use mutt if people would realy use eMail for communication and not to send eye candy.

• Firefox: The reason for not using safari is (and I think that's for a lot of user the fact) the possiblity to use add-ons. I am using

  • Firebug
  • Xmarks (I am syncing my bookmarks against my own webdav)
  • Texto (the successor of mozex)

  and I am very used to them.

• git: is the version control system of my choice. This google code project provides you with a really usable compilation.

• Aquamacs: I really need emacs. We are using the "operating system" Mac OS only to start the "real one" - emacs - aren't we? (BTW - Aquamacs doesn't mean that this is based on the aqua API. Todays releases are all based on the cocoa API)

• Zsh: I am using zsh and I love the config from the [grml][grml] distribution. Simply download the .zshrc with

  curl "http://git.grml.org/?p=grml-etc-core.git;a=blob_plain;f=etc/zsh/zshrc;hb=HEAD" > .gitrc

  To change the default shell you can go to "System Preferences" -> "Accounts" -> right click on your username -> "Advanced options".

• [StuffIt][stufit]: Has prooven itself to be a usefull unpacking utility

Configuration issues

• Using CapsLock as second "ctrl": Since 10.4 it couldn't be easier. Go to "System Preferences"->"Keyboard"->"Modifier Keys" and do what ever you want! (I had a realy bad emacs pinkie but now I feel much better)

• Speed up keyboard: You can stay in the keyboard setup as described in the last tip. Move the slider for the "repeat rate" and the "delay until repeat" till the right. I don't know what's the matter with the people at the infinity loop - but the default settings are soooo slow.

That drives me crazy!

• Have you found a cute solution to use the "option" key as "meta" inside of iTerm? Especially if you are connected to a linux screen session inside of iTerm through ssh. The whole key mapping issue between mac and linux drives me crazy. I can't override "option" to be "meta" because else it is impossible to get the whole "[]|{}" crap. Aquamacs has this magic " ... Meta & German" hack - perhaps there is a possiblity to learn iTerm something similar?

Last weekend the cpu cooling of my server at hetzner died. I still don't know why - but during the crash the superblock of the root file system was destroyed :(. / was running on reiserfs and I started to recover the file system tree. More or less I could recover the most data of the system. But it was clear for me that I wouldn't deploy this partly broken system.

It was fully my fault that I hadn't backuped the system. Of course I'd daily backups of the virtual mail folders and all the important data, but the system itself was lost. So I decided to do a little expense and buy a second hard disk from hetzner. Now I run the system on SW raid 1. Further I switched from gentoo to debian as the HW is outdated and updating got a bit cumbersome.

I am also very proud of my discipline because I wrote some kind of documentation/howto of the server configuration. Feel free to get inspired. I also appreciate any response an what you can find there.

For everyone who doesn't follow fefe's blog I really would like you to visit google maps. There you can see overlayed pictures of the oil spill on different days. It was really frightening for me to see what humans are able to do.

In my opinion the term "environment protection" is simply wrong. Environment and nature doesn't need to be protected. I can (more or less) ensure everybody that earth will still exist in a million of years.

"So the question is not if we can protect the nature but if we can still live in it!"