Copying files to /etc deletes contents of /var and /tmp

[Jon Drews]

On Nov 5, 2007 10:48 PM, Peter Hessler <phessler at theapt.org> wrote:
> exactly how did you copy the file over?  I've done this many times and
> have not managed to reproduce your behavior.
>

Hi Peter:

1)  I have a tarball of /etc.
2) I unpack this tarball in my user account.
3) I log into root and cd  to /etc
4) I copy  # cp /home/jon/etc/printcap /etc/printcap
5) When I reboot the next time /var is empty except for .ice-tmp,
mc-bsd/ and another file (I do not remember the second file).
6) /tmp also has two .ice* files. I can't remember the suffixes.

I Also get this behavior when I do a restore of a dump that I have made on /etc.

I looked at the dmesg and saw nothing odd. I have reinstalled OpenBSD
4.2 since my first e-mail
Here is my post from May 3 of 2007:
----------------------------------------
subject: restore damages my existing files
OpenBSD 4.1
on i386 using GENERIC kernel

Hi:

 I backed up /etc using the command:
# dump -f /mnt/bsd/OpenBSDEtc.dump /etc

when I do and interactive restore like so:
# cd /root
# restore -i -f  /mnt/bsd/OpenBSDEtc.dump

I extract the files fstab, printcap, sysctl.conf and xorg.conf. I then
copy fstab and printcap to /etc and look at the old sysctl.conf and
make modifications to the new sysctl.conf. Since I have softdeps in
the new (copied) fstab, I delete the temporary etc in /root/etc and
then reboot the computer.

 Upon booting, I see messages that database files are missing. I
login and see that  /var is the same as /tmp. What am I doing wrong
here?

 I have read through the backup sections in Evie Nemeth's purple book
and also the UNIX Sys Admin book by Aileen Frisch. I thought
interactive restore was pretty straightforward. Are the original
inodes being preserved? Also the man page says that there is a
temporary fi;e called "restoresymtable". I did a find / -name
"restoresymtable", before I rebooted, and nothing turned up.



-- 
Kind regards,
Jonathan