Re: [Evolution] Re: directories to save for update

[guenther <guenther rudersport de>]

On Mon, 2006-05-22 at 18:26 +0200, nicola .:kOoLiNuS:. losito wrote:
> Il giorno sab, 22/04/2006 alle 14.50 +0200, Andre Klapper ha scritto:
>
> > Evolution stores your data in $HOME/.evolution, your account settings in
> > $HOME/.gconf/apps/evolution and your passwords in
> > $HOME/.gnome2_private/Evolution. SSL Certificates are stored in
> > $HOME/.camel_certs.
>
> [cut]
>
>       Hi list!
> i would like to advertize a little script that Sebastien [1] made out of
> the "guide" Andre wrote some time ago and that i've republished on the
> pages of my blog [2].

Besides some nitpicking (which I am not going to jump on), there are
some issues with that script. The important ones:

* When using gconftool-2 {--dump,--load}, there is absolutely no reason
to tell gconfd to shutdown. This is a good idea however, when manually
messing with the files in the ~/.gconf/ directory, to make it definitely
sync. The script actually uses both, which is not necessary. The first
method is the preferred way.

* The script saves the passwords, as well! Which is not a good idea when
being done automatically, unless some proper precautions are done. The
password file holds the passwords basically in *cleartext*, the base64
just makes it not obvious "by accident", but the passwords are not
encrypted in any way. The protection is the permissions of the
~/.gnome2_private/ dir, which effectively is void after sticking that
file in a tarball and not protecting that tarball at any time.


> Hope it can be useful to someone {and i ask myself if it can't be
> incorporated in a new Evolution button/option}.

IIRC a plugin does exist, to backup and restore Evo data. Doesn't seem
to be built by default though -- probably because it has been in an
experimental stage last time I had a look at it, and still is.

The most important thing to note about this is, that the issue is not
the missing "Backup up all my data now" button, however big, in red
blinking uppercase letters it may appear. The issue is with the user to
remember to click that button *before* he is updating his distro and
chooses to overwrite his $HOME.

Simply backing up the entire $HOME will do this also. There are way more
data most users want to keep anyway, than Evo data.


Of course, this is like my opinion only. Which makes it the opinion of a
guy who has helped hundreds and hundreds of users during the last years
to save their balls and restore any data we still can find... ;-)

...guenther


> [1] http://www.tux-planet.fr/blog/?2006/05/19/76-evolution-backup-script
> [2] http://koolinus.wordpress.com/2006/04/23/evolution-how-to-backup/

-- 
char *t="\10pse\0r\0dtu\0  ghno\x4e\xc8\x79\xf4\xab\x51\x8a\x10\xf4\xf4\xc4";
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;i<l;i++){ i%8? c<<=1:
(c=*++x); c&128 && (s+=h); if (!(h>>=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}