But, as a good sysadmin, you are probably confident enough to occasionally skip the above step.<\/p>\n
With a few bash functions and an alias or two stuffed in your .bashrc, doing the right thing can be seamless and alleviate the worry about having to\u00a0retrieve\u00a0backup tapes in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n
Bash function I use daily.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
function back_file\n{\n echo \"Working on $1\"\n if [ ! -f $1 ];then\n echo \"$1 doesn't exist\"\n fi\n export ndate=`date +%m-%d-%y-%H:%M`\n echo cp $1 $1.$ndate\n cp $1 $1.$ndate\n}<\/pre>\nExample usage:<\/p>\n
paskoblaster:~: $ touch foo\npaskoblaster:~: $ back_file foo\nWorking on foo\ncp foo foo.09-21-11-10:42<\/pre>\nThis alone is a timesaver, but when combined with an another bash function, I get good things for few keystrokes, and an easy back out plan should I fat-finger or typo the change.<\/p>\n
function bvi\n{\n if [ ! -f $1 ]\n then\n echo \"must enter file to edit\"\n return\n fi\n back_file $1\n resize\n vi $1\n\n}<\/pre>\nwith the keystrokes:<\/p>\n
bvi foo<\/strong><\/p>\nThe function makes a backup copy, resizes the terminal window and runs vi on the file.<\/p>\n
All in all, a huge time saver which supports good sysadmin karma.<\/p>\n
Season to taste, your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a good sysadmin, you are probably in the good habit of making a backup copy of critical system files before editing them. But, as a good sysadmin, you are probably confident enough to occasionally skip the above step. With … Continue reading