upgrade to jessie, what to backup

[Tony Baechler]

I know this seems obvious, but did you make a tar archive of /etc in single 
user mode?  Just doing a file copy to an external drive won't usually work 
because file permissions aren't preserved.  Most external drives are 
formatted as NTFS or FAT32 and are not suited for file backups.  Making a 
tar archive of /etc is generally safer and does preserve permissions.  This 
command should work, but if not, someone will hopefully correct me:

cd /
tar cf etc.tar etc

You might want to check the official Jessie release notes here:

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes

I suggest installing something like Screen or tmux, just in case the upgrade 
takes longer than planned or somehow leaves you without a working shell.  It 
is very useful to be able to create a new window to check configuration 
files, manuals, web sites, etc.  You can detach, create new windows, etc. 
Also, keep a script of the output as sometimes messages and warnings are 
displayed which you might miss.  You do that with the script command.  Run 
"script" first before starting the upgrade but after launching screen or 
tmux.  You want to be especially careful about upgrading your kernel and 
probably want to do that separately after the system upgrade, but follow the 
guidance in the release notes if in doubt.

On 11/4/2015 10:38 PM, Tom Fowle wrote:
> Planning to upgrade from wheezie to jessie.
> Backing up to a usb external hard drive, I've done everything under /home
> and /etc.
> Is there anything else I should backup? or other things to be aware of
> before or during the upgrade?