Since the first installation of my system I modified various config files in /etc and I customised my system.
Copying the whole /etc for storage in a safe location before reinstalling/upgrading would slow down and potentially damage a new install, therefore how can I collect all and only the modified files?
/etc
I see plenty of files that are fairly recent and that I didn't change myself (likely due to automatic updates and a few recent installs). Not mentioning things that are links to files outside of/etc
(like most/etc/systemd
services). Personally I keep a shadow of/etc
files I change (/etc/hosts
, for instance), so they get backed up with my stuff when I do backups. I can also edit them with my favorite graphical editor and justsudo cp
them when they are ready.