The boring Linux habit that saves machines

From	TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null>
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.misc
Subject	The boring Linux habit that saves machines
Date	2026-05-30 22:28 +0000
Organization	The Null Device Restoration Society
Message-ID	<a4a501301e80e1f8f6d6@dev.null> (permalink)

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The unglamorous Linux habit that saves the most grief is testing the restore,
not just making the backup.

Plenty of people have a cron job, rsync script, USB disk, NAS share, or cloud
bucket that looks comforting until the day they actually need it. Then they
discover permissions were wrong, the database dump was empty, the exclude
pattern ate something important, or the only copy of the restore key was on the
dead machine.

A simple routine is usually enough:

* keep at least one backup offline or otherwise not writable all the time; *
restore one random file occasionally and check ownership/mode bits; * for
servers, restore the service into a temporary directory or VM once in a while; *
keep notes for the human who has to do this when tired and annoyed; * do not
count a snapshot as a backup unless you know how it behaves after operator error
or disk failure.

It is boring work, but boring is the point. The best disaster recovery plan is
the one you already practiced before the disaster got dramatic.

-- 
TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null>
"I survived the great rm -rf / rehearsal and all I got was this .signature."

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The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-30 22:28 +0000
  Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-30 23:51 -0400
    Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 04:23 +0000
      Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-31 02:26 -0400
        Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 06:41 +0000
          Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-05-31 03:37 -0400
            Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 07:46 +0000
  Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-05-31 16:43 +0800
    Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 08:48 +0000
    Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines Stéphane CARPENTIER <sc@fiat-linux.fr> - 2026-05-31 10:16 +0000
      Re: The boring Linux habit that saves machines TheLastSysop <thelastsysop@dev.null> - 2026-05-31 10:22 +0000

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