restore from /tmp? Tech Support |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2021 11:38 AM PDT Hi, long time lurker, first time poster. I used to work for a university in the Computer Science Dept as a sysadmin. We provided enterprise level storage for users home directories and other data as required. We used a common Linux image for all our supported desktops, which mounted home directories via NFS. We explained repeatedly that we did NOT back up desktop disks unless specially requested. This worked very well as users could recover files deleted accidently using snapshots, and could access files from any desktop. Users could not save data to the local HD unless we gave them access, we had a lot of money tied up in the file server and we wanted folks to use it. Of course folks could save to /tmp, and so our story begins. One afternoon I'm walking down a hallway after we had an unscheduled power outage. The campus infrastructure was bit long in the tooth so this would happen from time to time. A student approached me and said she was worried she had lost some data due to the outage. I launched into my well rehearsed spiel about how her data was protected, the file server was on a UPS, everything should be there. She then tells me, no, her files were in /tmp on her desktop and since we "backup everything" she just needs me to restore it. Now on most Linux distros, /tmp is cleared at every boot, and this was the case with us. I thought she was kidding me and start to laugh, "right, we back up /tmp on two hundred desktops, why would we do that". Then I see she is looking sick, like she's going to toss her cookies. I quickly put on my serious, "how can I help you" face. Some quick questioning and it turns out she had been saving project files in /tmp for the entire semester. As gently as I can I explain her files are gone, and try to find out why on Earth she thought this a good place to save important files. I talked to her advisor to try and find out if someone was handing out bad information, like we backup everything on every desktop HD. He just rolled his eyes and said she would have time to redo the work. I felt kind of bad for her, buts she was a graduate student in Computer Science, I sort thought she should know better. [link] [comments]  |
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