[tlug] Apparently NFS settings can destroy a system.

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

Since I had to reinstall my system fresh after the Jaunty upgrade didn't 
work, I thought I'd try something new. Which, of course, is always a 
recipe for disaster.

I back up my entire home directory, but there are just a few system 
files I find myself recreating or copying and pasting. For example, my 
xorg.conf file which has all my Wacom and dual screen settings.

This time, I thought that instead of copying these files from backups, I 
would keep a directory of similar files in my home directory and symlink 
them. That way if I do any edits, I'll be sure to have them backed up.

Seems to work like a charm for xorg.conf. So then I tried some other 
files. Specifically, "exports", "fstab", "hosts", and "httpd.conf".

But after I set up symlinks for these and rebooted, the computer died a 
horrible, agonizing death, with no GUI, and I couldn't even put the 
files back in place because it claimed I had no home folder, made the 
whole drive read-only, and generally made it impossible to do anything 
but re-install the system once again.

So...

How is it that these files, which I thought only related to networking, 
destroyed my GUI and system so thoroughly? And what's so bad about 
symlinking them?

Any advice much appreciated.


--
Dave M G
http://tlug.jp/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:Dave_M_G