System OS Mobility Tips

H

hugheba

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Needing some tips or how to's for setting up your system in a manner that allows you to swap out or reinstall Mac OS X versions without have to reinstall applications and preferences.

For example moving your applications and user directories onto a different partition so that you can wipe your OS partition or boot from a different partition and all still point to the same appication and user pool.

What are the restrictions? How do we point to these remote locations...etc?
 
Hi - I guess you had no takers on this one. I am currently attempting to transport all my stuff to a new install and I'm not sure there is an easy answer to this one.

So far I have discovered:

I tried copying a user account to the new install and it was not recognized for login.

Mail - if one copies the folder from /Users/username/Library/Mail to the same location in the new install, you can transfer your local mailboxes and the mail that is in them.

OfficeX - Copying it all to the new install works, but you lose all preferences for each app. Just where are those pesky preferences stored?

Any way, I have a thread on this at:
http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14536
 
Okay, I received a reply in another post - sorry don't have the link and I have to do some work today :-).

Any way, here is the best I could find. If one is in Classic or any OS9 version, you can copy the entire Applications and Users directories to the new install. I tried this between two OSX installs while running OSX, but I kept getting file copying/reading and permission errors. Running from Classic is the key to copying these directories.

As for pointing to these directories from another drive/machine/partition..., I'm out of my depths here and I have no idea if it can be done.

Good luck!
 
You can put your User directory anywhere you want. You will just need to:
1. Open netinfo and change the path to the user directory for each User you move. Make sure it is the complete path. ie.. /Volumes/YourPartitionNameHere/Users/UserNameHere.

2. Remove the /User file.

3. ln -s /Volumes/YourPartitionNameHere/Users /Users

This is how I have moved my User directory to another partition. The same info should help you with your situation.

As for preferences, all of the users preferences are listed in ~/Library/Preferences.
These files must be in the new user Library in order to pass along all of the preferences.

Good Luck.:)
SA
 
buc99, you are awesome!!! I have not yet tried the OS9 file moving trick and it sounded just a little bit too good to be true, but with your suggestions it is too good to be true, but true nonetheless! Thank you!

I have been missing OS9's ability to simply swap a system folder, but now that I know how to solve these problems with OSX, I think it is far better - much cleaner.

Oh, if you don't mind, what about my fink installed XWindows environment - will simply copying my /sw directory to the new install do the trick - seems to good to be true...
 
I also forgot to tell you, when copy directories to another partition or somewhere else on the hardrive use the ditto command with rsrc flag:

sudo ditto -rsrc /Users /Volumes/OtherPartition/Users

Plus you will probably need to do this as root so do everything under sudo. Make sure you use the ditto command when moving the /sw directory. For more ideas on how easy it is to move directories around goto:

http://www.bombich.com/mactips/macosx.html

This guy has alot of info. He also uses niutil in the command line instead of NetInfo like I said. Either way will work.

Also check out these sites for other tips that might be useful:
http://www.savagetranscendental.com/OSX.html

And I'm starting a tips site myself that may be useful.
http://homepage.mac.com/sarmstrong13/OSXTips2.html

Good Luck.:)
SA
 
Is there really a need for fstab? I thought that if you changed the path, as I mentioned earlier, in the user settings in NetInfo, this would cover everything. As for moving the user's Library directory, I have my whole User directory on a seperate partition and have no issues with it being ln -s to the /User. I don't believe this will work for the /Applications directory, but I have any non-defaultly installed Apps in a different folder that is aliased inside my Apps folder. This way if I lose my /Application directory, I still have all of the other Apps I installed on another partition and just need to make a new alias after I re-install OSX. I actually did this on my imac and copied my User directory and my newapps directory from my TiBook and everything worked on my iMac flawlessly. I'm now in the process of mirroring these directories again so that I can re-partition my TiBook and then re-insstall everything.

So is an fstab really needed? Maybe if you want to move the /Applications folder, but I don't think you need to in the case of the /Users folder. If I am wrong, please let me know and tell me the reasoning behind it so I don't make the same mistake.

Thanks,:)
SA
 
Okay, I take back what I said about this being clean on OSX :-)

I like testuser's idea, but I'm a little overwhelmed. I have read your post a few times and I think I am getting it. I think this is good long term solution, but I will need to do quite a bit of arranging before I tackle this, plus I promised my wife I would spend less time on my computer!

In the mean time I'm going ahead with buc99's advice - thanks for the link!

Now for a completely dumb newby question - I have never copied or moved files between different drives (which is what I need to do now) - different partitions I think I get it, but what is the syntax for doing a mv between two partitions on different drives? I messed around at the /dev level, but I am not sure how to tell which volume is which. Even though the finder sees the drive, I assume I have to mount this drive in termnal - but how? I'm lost here.
 
Sorry to be a pest, but before I attempt any of this, I have a very basic question on doing anything between two drives. In /Volumes I only see the volumes on the drive I am running on. How can I navigate to my other drive and see the volumes listed for it?

I am looking for the proper commands that relate to identifying the path of a particular directory on one drive to a particular directory on another drive.

I have searched my linux and unix books and the web and cannot find a simple explanation of how to look at different drives onthe same machine.

Thanks.
 
RE:

* If you copy your /Users/username directory using the Finder -
permissions get screwed up (all 777, owner/group gets changed, etc). This is why I recommend using the "ditto" command.


This is why I said to use ditto -rsrc

* If you just move your /Users/username -
You are OK, but any new users you create will be put in the original /Users folder. You will need to move them, and update NetInfo. Furthermore, you will need to modify any other files that make reference to your home directory outside of NetInfo (changing all the /etc/httpd/users/username.conf files comes to mind). I do not know if there are others, or even if other apps that you install might try to reference the original /Users directory.


But if you do a:

ln -s /Volumes/Newuser /User

This will take care of all of the Apache configs.

* If you move your entire /Users directory and replace it with a soft link (i.e. "ln -s /Volumes/volname/Users /Users") -
You cannot create any new users using the Users panel in System Preferences


This is probably true. I created all of my users before I made the change. But you could create a new user from the command line couldn't you?

* If you move default applications from the /Applications directory -
Any future updates (e.g. via Software Update panel) will fail to find and update these applications.


I agree 100% on this.

Ok. Please don't take my comments the wrong way. I'm making sure all of the bases are covered. Now that we got through that, I'd have to agree with you that the fstab method is the least troublesome in the long run. Thanks for the great info. If you don't mind, I'd like to add your fstab tip to my tips site.

Thanks,:)

SA
 
Your partitions are mounted in the /Volumes directory. Do :

ls /Volumes

And you will see all of your mounted partitions.

But before you start. Try to do it the way Testuser explained for this will save alot of work in the future.

Good Luck.:)
SA
 
Do you want to hear something incredibly dumb - by force of habit (if one can develop Unix habits in 7 months), I kept going into /Volumes then typing the old "cd /User" and could not figure out why I couldn't see the user files in the other partition! Duhhhhhhhhhh.

Now it is time to get down to business!
 
Testuser-

The symlink will redirect the UNIX underpinnings only. (At least this is the case on disk formatted in hfs+. I do not know if it is the case in UFS or if this even affects it.) As you mentioned, Apple has yet to get the finder fully integrated into the UNIX underpinnings, nor do I know if this is even possible. This is why the finder sees symlinks as empty files, and the terminal see aliases as empty files. So by telling netinfo where the user directory is (the actual tip I got was to use the niutil on the command line, but I find it easier to use netinfo, which is the same thing I think.) finder is able to find it and hook everything up properly. I've tried it with just the symlink and everything broke. Anyways, I wish apple would get the finder to recognize symlinks for what they are. Maybe we should make a complaint to Apple. Anyone want to join the bandwagon.

But I agree with your use of fstab. I just felt there may have been a reason that Apple is not implementing the way I'm used to in Linux, so I shied away from fstab.

Thanks. This is a really great discussion and I have learned new and useful knowledge.:)

SA
 
It's a true lose-lose situation. It makes it hard to use anything other than the default setup of OS X.

Hmmm ....

Maybe this was Apple's intent to begin with. But I can't figure out why except to tick off a whole bunch of people that like the UNIX underpinnings.

I'll still file my complaint at the risk of it falling upond deaf ears.

Thanks.:)

SA

P.S. So you don't care if I publish your fstab tip on my tip site do ya?
 
Anyways... I have made symlinks for both /Users and /Applications...

the symlink with /Users works great!!!... using the bombich tut I got everything to work out.... I really have no need to create new users as I am the sole user of my mac....

However, my successes have been horrible with symlink'ing the /Applications directory... as everyone has pointed out: I am unable to update any program released with osX, and when I do update aps, it writes over the symlink.....

I like the option of using fdisk to change the path to another volume... however, –if I understand fdisk correctly– it will only work if one sets aside a volume for specifically for each task... ie. fdisk is the table which *nix looks to tell it how to mount a volume... which right now wont work at all as I am sick and tired of repartitioning my drive in order to make osX run the way I want it to.... (I am actually up to 3 times)....

I guess my question is this: is there a table that one can edit to change the default location that osX looks for the Application directory???...

I know there has to be a way to accomplish this.... :(

thanks to anyone who might have a solution!!!...

btw my partition map looks like this:
|-OSX
|-OS9
|-ETC
|-/Applications (symlink on OSX)
|-/Users (symlink on OSX)

-idiotMagoo
 
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