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Preserving your Personal Data and Settings when re-installing Linux

Page history last edited by Paul G. Taylor 14 years, 6 months ago

Note: This is rather verbose as it is my first attempt to assemble all the information I need.

              A more concise and usable format will be the aim for a more public Wiki eventually.

 

 Table of Contents.


 

 

 

Introduction.

 

Often, when working in a Linux distribution, the need arises to upgrade the system. This can cause the loss of a lot of hardly-won tweeks to the system as well as personal data accumulated over time. This wiki is designed to smooth the way to such upgrades so as to preserve this intellectual caplital and avoid having to repeating the process of setting up the newly installed OS to the previous settings. Half the battle is knowing what to keep and what will be discarded when doing the reinstallation. I am assuming that a full installation CD or DVD will be used to either reinstall the same release or upgrade to a later release.

 

With any potentially destructive process in computing, the first advice given is to do a backup prior to starting. Usually this advice is ignored, mainly due to lack of knowing how to do this easily.

 

For instance, someone writes : --

 

The two things for which I would like to have a simple way to back up prior to an upgrade, are cups and samba configuration - those are two things that generally take me some time to get set up correctly whenever I switch distros/upgrade.  If it were possible to preserve things like that it would be great. Also, applications one has installed since installing from the CD. For those of us on dial up having to reinstall those applications following an upgrade can be a real pain.

 

The extensiveness of the data kept in the ~/home/user/  folder can be seen from this report produced by Grsync backing up my current home folder : --

[Note this is a very truncated version as the total report would have been over 18,000 lines long!]

 
                             Record of running Grsync

 

The aim of this tutorial will be to ensure that the user, using simple GUI tools where possible, can easily create a backup of such data and preserve it for re-use after doing a full reinstallation of the operating system. The necessary steps in a How-to should detail each item to be backed up, distinguishing carefully between things that should be replaced when reinstalling the OS and those which may, advantageously, be re-used along with the freshly installed OS, so that it is brought as closely to the desired state as possible, with the least amount of effort, immediately after the installation itself.

 

The recommendation will be to create a layout of partitions and directories that will simplify this whole process going forward.

To Table of Contents

 

Layout of Partitions.

 

As with many things, a bit of planning right at the start can save a lot of work later. When installing a new Linux operating system, it is good policy to separate the parts that need to be treated differently in terms of backup and the like. Hence a good policy in partitioning for a new installation is to include this schema : --

 

Partition   Use                                                                                                                          Name of partition             Comments

 

Partition 1 Format this partition and install the root directory and the OS itself here.              /                                       Root directory, where all your software is stored.

 

Partition 2 This partition does not need to be reformatted when (re-)installing the OS            /home                              This directory will contain all your personal settings and links to your data.

 

Partition 3 Swap partition                                                                                        Mounted by the OS at boot-up           You should have as much swap space as needed to hibernate your system.

 

Partition 4 Data partition                                                                                                            Data                                 This partition will contain all your real data, documents, photos, music, etc

 

The final partition can contain all your personal data, including your emails,  and  will be symlinked to from your '/home/user' directory.

 

 

The advantages of this schema are : --

 

  1. It is possible, with little effort or risk, to re-install the same OS or a later version of it, without the risk of losing all your hard-erned settings.
  2. You can have more than one version of Linux installed, all of which use the same Data partition, so all your data is in one known place and accessible from anywhere.
  3. You can back up your system sensibly with very little effort or risk of data loss.

 

 

Now, if you haven't got your system set up like this, and you want to reinstall your OS, then you have to do a litte bit of work beforehand. Having tried various ways of backing up over the years, not too successfully I might add, I think that I have found a tool that is sufficiently easy to use and is efficient and safe as well, that you should now download, install and begin to use. It can be part of the new set-up as well, once you have done the new installation.

 

To Table of Contents


Various apporaches to this taken by others.

 


Cosbear's Clean-install to three partitions

 

 

A similar project, starting from a clean install to a new hard drive,

can be viewed on cosbear's web site : --

 

[Click here to go there.]

Howto:

Install Klikit to a recoverable 3 partition install

Introduction

 

 To Table of Contents


 

Safe and Easy Data Storage Outside the '/home' directory

 

Read a full discussion of the rationale and methods of doing this on the original web site where I learned most of this : --

 

 

Safe and Easy Data Storage Outside the /home

Don't crowd your /home!     Use Symbolic Links to access organized data storage.

 

The Argument:    Your Command Centre is not a data dump!

The general organizational scheme of GNU/Linux is derived from Unix, the classic mainframe operating system where many users shared one large computer with a unified filesystem. Under the /home directory, every user who had login access had a personal directory with a certain amount of space to save her/his private files.

Small-office and home users of todays GNU/Linux OS's usually operate in a far different environment. Personal computers may have more than one user — but often not. Even when there is more than one user, computer access is almost always by one user at a time, except in server set-ups. In the typical program-rich environment of the Linux Desktop Computer, the most vital function of the /home directory is to preserve the program configuration settings of each user.

This is a distinctly different function from the storage of accumulated personal data files like emails, pictures, music, videos, downloaded html pages, text documents, spreadsheets, and so on.

 

Read the rest of this valuable web site to appreciate both the need and the huge benefits of organising your hard drive this way. I can't emphasise this too much!

 

Archived copy of this how-to, which is currently not available on the Web at its home address, is kept here : --

 

SafeandEasy DataStorage Outsidethe/home [archived]

 To Table of Contents

 


 

 Easily Setup Separate /home partition in Ubuntu.

 

 

  • Here's another take on the situation, where you already have an installed version, without the necessary partition for 'Home' 

 

 

Easily Setup Separate /home partition in Ubuntu!

 

To Table of Contents


 Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu

 

  • Here's yet another take on the situation, where you already have an installed version, without the necessary partition for 'Home' 

 

Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu

Introduction

This guide is for creating a separate /home partition if you already installed Ubuntu without a /home partition (i.e., /home is just a folder inside your / partition). If you have not yet installed Ubuntu but want to create a /home partition before installing (a very good idea, by the way), use this guide. If you want to know more about partition planning, read this.

 

To Table of Contents


 

Ubuntu Linux Resources

 

By the way, this whole web site is full of useful information, slanted towards Ubuntu, but never-the-less helpful for any Linux, I would think.

 

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/

 

 

What is this?

Who are you?

Why make this?

How often do you update this site? Are there any out-of-date tutorials?"

Can I translate or redistribute the tutorials here?

How do I contact you?

What other Ubuntu resources are there?

Can I use this for other Linux distributions?

What is Ubuntu?

 

What is this?

It's a collection of tutorials and random other pages that will help Ubuntu users.

Who are you?

I'm just another Ubuntu user. I don't represent Canonical. I'm a regular on the Ubuntu forums, but that doesn't make this page in any way officially associated with Ubuntu.

Why make this?

Some of the documentation out there isn't step-by-step enough for new users. I try to make my tutorials what I feel is a good mix between comprehensive and simple.

Other guides and documentation projects also tend to have too many tutorials—to the point where it's actually difficult to find the tutorial you're looking for. I've tried to include only what I consider questions that are asked frequently enough to warrant a special guide or that do not have documentation in other places.

...

 

 

 To Table of Contents


 Moving /home to its own partition 

 

And here is yet another take on this question : --

 

Moving /home to its own partition

 

After upgrading Ubuntu to 8.04 I decided it would be a good idea to finally move /home folder to a separate partition. It makes it much easier to make backups and reinstall operating system if all data/configurations are safely stored on their own partition.

 

Without installing additional hard drive (which would be impractical for laptop user anyway) the only source for extra space was Vista partition. Vista comes preinstalled with most modern laptops, but there’s no need for it to exist taking up to 40Gb of hard drive space, when Ubuntu is the primary OS.

 

... this is a well documented and easy to follow how-to.

 

To Table of Contents


 

 

 

Tools

 

 

  • sbackup

sbackup

 

If you are using Synaptic, then open it and search for 'sbackup' and install it.

 

Simple Backup Suite is a set of backend backup daemon and Gnome

GUI frontends that provide a simple yet powerful backup

solution for common desktop users.

 

Backups can be written to local directory or remote servers using

Gnome VFS technology. A fine control is possible regarding what

folders and files to backup. Files can be excluded even with a set

of regular expressions. Regular backups can be scheduled.

 

This tool has been written with Google sponsorship during Summer

of Code 2005 with mentoring help from Ubuntu.

 
Then set it up to backup your home directory into another partition, if possible, or to a compressed file that you can burn to CD or DVD.

 

To do this, use follow the How-to on the Ubuntu forums at : --

 

Backup and Restore Ubuntu System using Sbackup

http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2007/03/backup-and-restore-ubuntu-system-using.html

 

The default settings used are : --

 

Include -   /var/

             -  /home/

             -  /usr/local/

             -  /etc/

Exclude -  /proc/

             -  /sys/

             -  /tmp/

             -  /var/cache/

             -  /dev/

             - /var/tmp/

Destination -  /var/backup         or set your custom local backup directory   or use a remote directory (SSH or FTP)

 

You can set a time schedule to automate both the backup process and also the purging of old backups, or do it manually, as and when required.

 

These defaults give a clue as to what may be backed up usefully.

 

Once you have a backup, you can restore either the whole backup or selectively chose parts to backup one by one.

 

 To Table of Contents

 

 

 

  • aptoncd

 

aptoncd

 

 

 

Link to home-page http://aptoncd.sourceforge.net/

 

Another tool that will be helpful, to prevent having to download again any applications that have been added since the original installation, is the application 'APTonCD' or 'aptoncd'.

This tool allows you to copy all the installation files in the system cache to a CD or DVD and to re-install them from there after doing the upgrade installation of the OS. For those on slow Internet connections this will be a great boon.

 

Get APT anywhere

Have you ever felt that there is no life without APT? Well, if you'd suddenly lost conection to the internet, how would you install new packages? What about dependencies? You've just finished installing Ubuntu and configured it to a rad look, with all your favorite applications? For some reason you now have to re-install it? Feel like you have to download all of your favorite programs again? What? You've already forgotten which packages you had dowloaded before?

 

 

What is APTonCD?

APTonCD is a tool with a graphical interface which allows you to create one or more CDs or DVDs (you choose the type of media) with all of the packages you've downloaded via APT-GET or APTITUDE, creating a removable repository that you can use on other computers.

APTonCD will also allow you to automatically create media with all of your .deb packages located in one especific repository, so that you can install them into your computers without the need for an internet conection.

 

 

With APTonCD you be able to...

Backup
Backup all downloaded packages (via apt-get, aptitude and synaptic) to restore later.
Transport
Take with you all your favorite packages, in a removable repository where you can install then all on anytime, anytime.
Download
Get an entire repository, or a specifc section. Simply point-and-click, and in few time you'll have an CD(s) or DVD(s) with entire main, restricted, universe, multiverse, contrib, etc.
Share
Share your packages with your friends without Internet conection. Also, send a meta-package for him to install the same set of packages that you have.

The latter file could be made available in the downloads section for anyone to use.

 

Message after running this on my computer : --

 

The image was successfully created, and it can be found in

/mnt/Data2/ISO-Files/APT-On-CD-Backup/aptoncd-20080717-CD1.iso

 

Do you want burn it now?  [Answer = No]

 You can restore from both the burned CD/DVD or the saved ISO file.

 To Table of Contents

 

  • file-roller

file-roller

 

 

 

 

an archive manager for GNOME

File-roller is an archive manager for the GNOME environment. It allows you to:

 

 * Create and modify archives.

 * View the content of an archive.

 * View a file contained in an archive.

 * Extract files from the archive.

 

File-roller supports the following formats:

 * Tar (.tar) archives, including those compressed with

   gzip (.tar.gz, .tgz), bzip (.tar.bz, .tbz), bzip2 (.tar.bz2, .tbz2),

   compress (.tar.Z, .taz) and lzop (.tar.lzo, .tzo)

 * Zip archives (.zip)

 * Jar archives (.jar, .ear, .war)

 * 7z archives (.7z)

 * iso9660 CD images (.iso)

 * Lha archives (.lzh)

 * Single files compressed with gzip (.gz), bzip (.bz), bzip2 (.bz2),

   compress (.Z) and lzop (.lzo)

 

File-roller doesn't perform archive operations by itself, but relies on

standard tools for this.

 

Homepage: http://fileroller.sourceforge.net

 

 

 To Table of Cont

 

 

Grsync

 

 Grsync

 

 

  See note on Install-now, on its own page.

 

 

 

This is a simple graphical user interface for the rsync application and it can do a very fast, efficient synchronisation between any given folder, such as the ~home folder, and another external folder. This is much faster than simple-backup and easier to use, in my view. It should be installable from the repositories using Synaptic or apt-get.

 

GTK+ frontend for rsync

grsync is a simple graphical interface using GTK2 for the rsync command line

program. It currently supports only a limited set of the most important rsync

features, but can be used effectively for local directory synchronization.

 

Use it to synchronise various folders in your installed system that you wish to preserve, in a different partition

 

 Here's a nice little tutorial written for another distro.

http://www.pclosmag.com/html/Issues/200708/page04.html

 

 

 To Table of Cont

 

debfoster

http://freshmeat.net/projects/debfoster/

 

About debfoster :

Most Debian application packages depend on other packages, containing libraries or other utilities. When the application package is removed, the dependencies will still linger on the system. Debfoster can detect such "orphaned" dependencies and will clean them up. It can be used as a front-end to apt or standalone.

Install only wanted Debian packages

debfoster is a wrapper program for apt and dpkg.  When first run, it

will ask you which of the installed packages you want to keep

installed.

 

After that, it maintains a list of packages that you want to have

installed on your system.  It uses this list to detect packages that

have been installed only because other packages depended on them.  If

one of these dependencies changes, debfoster will take notice, and

ask if you want to remove the old package.

 

This helps you to maintain a clean Debian install, without old

(mainly library) packages lying around that aren't used any more.

 

To see the current list of applications in the debfoster keepers file, do

 

cat /var/lib/debfoster/keepers

 

This lists the list out on one line per item. So you can use it to create a file with one application per line, using

 

cat /var/lib/debfoster/keepers > keeperslist-1xline.txt  [ or whatever you wish to call the output file ]

 

 

 

See this tutorial on how to use debfoster .

 

HOWTO: using debfoster in practice

 

Hi,

 

This is not for the faint of heart so fresh baked noobs get away!

 

This is my first HOWTO. I noticed I was explaining debfoster a lot and I wanted to have a link to it. debfoster is a very powerful tool once you are getting used to it. I've thought up five scenarios of use :

 

SCENARIO 1)You use it to keep track of what you did install

SCENARIO 2)You want to make your system clean,mean and lean.

SCENARIO 3)You have had problems with upgrading to hoary or you have entered a dependencies hell on accident.

SCENARIO 4)You want an internet gateway with a nice windowmanager that uses little resources.

SCENARIO 5)You want to remove all of kde and kubuntu and go back to ubuntu-desktop

 

apt-cache show debfoster :

Quote:
Description: Install only wanted Debian packages

debfoster is a wrapper program for apt and dpkg. When first run, it

will ask you which of the installed packages you want to keep

installed.

.

After that, it maintains a list of packages that you want to have

installed on your system. It uses this list to detect packages that

have been installed only because other packages depended on them. If

one of these dependencies changes, debfoster will take notice, and

ask if you want to remove the old package.

.

This helps you to maintain a clean Debian install, without old

(mainly library) packages lying around that aren't used any more.

To Table of Contents


 

Command-line How-to.

 

Well, my aim has been to provide a simple GUI method of doing all this, but for those who are happy with the CLI there are perhaps easier and simpler ways there!

 

 E.g.

 


« on: January 21, 2008, 10:03:07 PM »
Reply with quote

Once you have got your distro setup all nicely, backup all your important config files !!

 

Why Rich ?

 

Because you just know that sooner or later you are going to mess with something, or try to install something that you are going to wish you hadn't touched, and completely bork your system, aren't you?

 

yessir!

 

Ok,

 

Open the terminal and copy and paste these commands:

 

Code:
richs@lxh:~$ sudo mkdir backups
richs@lxh:~$ su
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/modules backups/ 
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/apt/sources.list backups/ 
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf backups/ 
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf.* backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/fstab backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/resolv.conf backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/hosts backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /boot/grub/menu.lst backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# cp -f /etc/network/interfaces backups/
root@lxh:/home/richs# dpkg --get-selections >> backups/packagelist

Now do a quick ls (list) of the Backups directory

 

Code:
root@lxh:/home/richs# ls backups
fstab  menu.lst  packagelist  sources.list  xorg.conf.20080119182617
hosts  modules   resolv.conf  xorg.conf     xorg.conf.failsafe
root@lxh:/home/richs#

Yup! all there

 

Now burn them to a CD, put them on a USB pendrive, write them on the wall in lipstick.... I don't care, just keep them safe Wink

 

 


 

« Reply #3 on: Yesterday at 03:17:34 PM »
Reply with quote

there is an other alternative to safe your home-folder. a very simple way for a new installation:

 

copy your "/home" to a new partition. install or reinstall your system and change the /home to your new partition. you do this in the /etc/fstab. perhaps you must specify the uuid. you get the uuid with the command

 

blkid

 

is the entry in the fstab correct delete your old /home and mount your new one. that's all. (ok, my english is very bad, but i hope you understand what i want to say)

 

Here is the output of that blkid command on my Klikit-Linux computer : --

 

paul@PAULS-Klikit:/media/Data-FAT32-hdb9$ blkid

/dev/hda6: UUID="887fbbde-409b-4551-8497-25be976a8186" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hda1: TYPE="ntfs"

/dev/hda3: UUID="f8e873ca-0434-4ecd-b82b-b36fae91d171" TYPE="swap"

/dev/hda5: UUID="4f110e6c-b8a2-4190-9d26-0f95720dddc1" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hda4: UUID="3f1c32ff-75e2-4bb6-8ea6-d66fb180ba15" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

 

Note hdb1 is missing. Failed installation of Klikit-Linux messed up this hard drive. Under reconstruction still!

/dev/hdb2: UUID="ef2fefd1-e910-43f9-ad96-1159638cf32c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hdb3: UUID="8e87c11c-ea51-4628-8844-54b1a56a5b8d" TYPE="swap"

/dev/hdb5: LABEL="LINUX" UUID="2C71-3AC3" TYPE="vfat"

/dev/hdb6: UUID="a427fdf5-b4c9-44d2-91ca-a6f4ae7708ff" TYPE="ext2"

/dev/hdb7: UUID="42aa2175-9f60-49b7-91dd-6fe811f7707c" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hdb8: LABEL="debian" UUID="1753e3b0-0457-4f56-a090-da837429b228" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hdb9: UUID="45BA-6B28" TYPE="vfat"

/dev/hdb10: UUID="4b2f2ed5-e367-467d-b898-bc6be3da3ec5" TYPE="ext2"

/dev/hdb11: UUID="57e8b300-a227-42a5-95e4-012374bbbf0b" TYPE="reiserfs"

/dev/hdb12: UUID="a0b9970b-9a98-4914-9597-98b097b0b1a9" TYPE="reiserfs"

/dev/hdb13: UUID="c35c554e-0466-445e-9789-ce9c3abb144d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/hdb14: UUID="f6b569b7-a045-447a-8b99-f51f7d29b168" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

paul@PAULS-Klikit:/media/Data-FAT32-hdb9$   

 

 

Here is the output of that blkid command on my ArtistX 0.6 computer, Saturday, August 29 2009 : --

 

paul04@paulArtistX:~$ blkid

 

/dev/ramzswap0: TYPE="swap"

/dev/sda1: UUID="be44dd29-a62b-4c71-8650-7c120ecd9829" TYPE="ext3" SEC_TYPE="ext2"

/dev/sda5: LABEL="Logical5" UUID="f88c75a1-f38c-4363-8a25-0d5c8a0a2df6" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"

/dev/sda2: LABEL="SharedData" UUID="2fa8b5a9-b01e-4235-a0c4-0aded68e94a2" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda3: UUID="02E7BF64795AF0BD" LABEL="Primary3" TYPE="ntfs"

/dev/sda6: LABEL="Logical6" UUID="60718343-f7e4-43f5-ba96-546fac4b20b7" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda7: LABEL="Logical7" UUID="fd5ec087-b8db-4e0e-ad8c-bdc15bffa62e" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda8: LABEL="Logical8" UUID="b6b4a6f0-1c5b-4083-b7c4-9432a1d584fc" TYPE="ext3" SEC_TYPE="ext2"

/dev/sda9: LABEL="Logical9" UUID="3f5534bd-f26d-45bb-b159-cbfc6ce2d926" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda10: LABEL="Logical10" UUID="423dec07-a7f5-4b9e-a58f-0598874b869d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda11: LABEL="Logical11" UUID="3d0bd3e1-3092-47a8-9027-c38eab046dfb" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda12: TYPE="swap" UUID="e68bc99c-b4ca-412a-a129-80f7a1211dd5"

/dev/sda13: TYPE="swap" UUID="21774ce0-4143-474c-9454-507650f5901c"

/dev/sda14: UUID="6c2bd44a-0c9f-40b9-b6e9-c5dd7a71bf07" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sda15: LABEL="Spare" UUID="e39107b9-c80a-4bde-ab0a-738fc79dae29" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

 

/dev/sdf1: LABEL="RunDisk" UUID="7CF5-B2CF" TYPE="vfat"

/dev/sdf2: UUID="d7da303b-be05-4168-bd73-1ddb821645e1" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sdf5: TYPE="swap" UUID="df4f6cdf-2469-46e7-8f74-ceef90d8b106"

 

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="KINGSTON" UUID="338B-0B84" TYPE="vfat"

/dev/sdb2: UUID="924fc6ed-cf38-49ad-a1cd-4c72b857acf5" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

/dev/sdb3: UUID="d7abdc85-8f97-41d6-9b5d-79916f8afdff" TYPE="swap"

/dev/sdb4: UUID="3ED61C190C723976" TYPE="ntfs"

 

paul04@paulArtistX:~$

 

 

 To Table of Contents


 

To Table of Contents

Special Files and Folders

 

Thunderbird Profile(s)

 

From the Thunderbird FAQ

 

Move an existing profile or restore a backed up profile

It's possible to move the location of a profile folder. This could be useful if you have a backed up profile folder somewhere on your hard drive and want to tell Thunderbird to use that as your profile. This section explains how to do this.

  1. Shut down Thunderbird completely (File > Exit).
  2. Move the profile folder to the desired location. For example, on Windows XP, move the profile from C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default to D:\Stuff\MyMailProfile. If you are reading these instructions because you want to restore a previously backed up profile, this step isn't necessary. Just note the current location of the profile you want to restore.
  3. Open up profiles.ini in a text editor. The file is located in the application data folder for Thunderbird:
    • On Windows Vista/XP/2000, the path is %AppData%\Thunderbird\
    • On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Thunderbird\
    • On Linux, the path is ~/.mozilla/thunderbird/                                       [Note my change in path].

       

    • On Mac OS X, the path is ~/Library/Application Support/Thunderbird/
  4. In profiles.ini, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location. If you are using a non-relative pathname, the direction of the slashes may be relevant (this is true for Windows XP).
  5. Change IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
  6. Save profiles.ini and restart Thunderbird.

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Firefox Preferences, Bookmarks, Passwords, etc

 

From the Firefox knowledgebase.

 

Backing up your information

Mozilla Firefox stores all your personal settings, such as bookmarks, passwords and extensions, in a profile folder, which is stored on your computer. To back up your profile, restore it, or move it to a new location or computer, all you have to do is move or copy the profile folder.

 

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Restoring to a different location - advanced users

Instead of the above, advanced users may prefer to do the following:

  1. Locate the backed up profile folder on your hard drive or backup medium (e.g. your USB-stick) and copy it to the hard drive. Any target location on your hard drive will do, but it is advised that you put it in the default profile location, as explained in the first paragraph.
  2. Open up profiles.ini in a text editor by double clicking on it. The file is located in ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini
  3. In profiles.ini, locate the entry for the profile you've just moved. Change the Path= line to the new location.
  4. Change the line with the text IsRelative=1 to IsRelative=0.
  5. Review the changes made and save profiles.ini.
  6. Start Firefox.

 

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