[sf-lug] SF-LUG list archives backed up

[Michael Paoli]

And I[2] did gently[1] snag a backup copy of the SF-LUG list archive,
and Rick has also mentioned its public availability (from
linuxmafia.com) multiple times before[3][4][5].
For lack of better place, it's backed up to here:
[0] http://www.sf-lug.org/sf-lug.mbox
Fairly probable I may set something up to regularly (e.g. at least
monthly) backup the list archive, and that particular here[0] is fairly
regularly backed up[2].  Of course Rick *also* had and has backups of
that data, and made such available[5].

footnotes/references/excerpts:
0. http://www.sf-lug.org/sf-lug.mbox
1. gently - would be the --limit-rate=5k bit (don't want to hog too much
    bandwidth for too long)
    $ wget -N --limit-rate=5k \
    > http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug.mbox/sf-lug.mbox
2. not my "job", but ... (reference excerpts):
> From: "Michael Paoli" <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu>
> To: [a whole bunch 'o SF-LUG folks on something approximating a list]
> Subject: Re: mailing lists, backup/recovery/disasters/failures,  
> free/volunteer, ... [was: Re: Mailing lists using usenet newsgroup]
> Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 20:43:14 -0800

> And yes, points well taken regarding backups!  :-)  And I do also
> provide some fair amount of assistance on SF-LUG (most notably much of
> the typical day-to-day systems administration/maintenance of the VM that
> sf-lug.org/sf-lug.com runs upon) - and I even do quite regular
> (approximately monthly) remote offsite backup of that host (and the
> physical host upon which it runs, and one other VM under that physical
> host).  But alas, in many ways I'm "only" like secondary or tertiary
> systems administrator for SF-LUG - I don't own the hardware, I'm not in
> charge of its colo arrangement, I don't own/control or have access to
> alter its registrar data or contact information or ownership (the "keys
> to the kingdom" for sf-lug.org. and sf-lug.com.), but mostly only handle
> some fair bits "downstream" of that where some to much of that access
> (and/or assistance on it) has been delegated/extended to me.  Anyway,
> "fully backing up everything of SF-LUG interest" does and would cover
> more than just that VM, and I've mostly not covered that (not to make
> excuses, but), I'm more heavily involved in BALUG (SF-LUG meeting
> location is not convenient to me or where I do/have worked, hence
> relatively rare I make it to an SF-LUG meeting), the list mbox and
> subscriber information as Rick has pointed out on multiple occasions,
> is there available for *anyone* to back up(!), and though I do have
> quite a vested interest in the (relatively) smooth continued operation
> of BALUG and its services, and would like to also see such with SF-LUG,
> I don't have nearly as large a vested interest in SF-LUG ... just
> sayin'.  Though too :-) I do also quite back up what's important to
> *me* with SF-LUG - most notably there's fair bit "invested" in the (VM)
> host configuration/operation - so I quite back that up, as recreating
> most or all of that would be quite a pain and time/resource sink -
> whereas with it quite fully backed up if/when there might ever be need
> or reason to replace or get that going again more-or-less as it was,
> it's one helluva lot easier to pick up from the point of having very
> good backups of that, as compared to totally starting from scratch ...
> so, ... I back it up :-) - well, at least quite cover the VM on that.
3. http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2007q4/003228.html
4. http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2007q4/003232.html
5.
> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at deirdre.net>
> To: jim <jim at well.com>
> Cc: [a bunch 'o SF-LUG folks]
> Subject: Re: Mailing lists using usenet newsgroup
> Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2015 15:43:40 -0800

> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:40 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
>> I'm for MailMan. Either we wait until Rick gets to
>> it or we set up our own (after we get the backups
>> from Rick).
>
> I'm pretty sure I've sent this information to you-plural in the past,
> but I'll do it now just in case:   This is intended to help your
> collective memory and improve your process going forward.
>
> 1.  GNU Mailman can be trivially configured (by the site admin) to
> permit public download of the cumulative mbox of any hosted Maliman
> mailing list.  That is the set of all past postings to date, from
> which the archives can then be recreated anywhere desired, with a
> single command (using /var/lib/mailman/bin/arch).  Thus, it is 95% of
> the important data comprising the mailing list's 'state'.  In the case
> of SF-LUG's mailing list on linuxmafia.com, the relevant URL was (and
> will again be) /http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug.mbox/sf-lug.mbox
> .  Not all Mailman instances are configured to enable that function,
> but all of the ones that I administer are.
>
> In the case of my server, all mailing list information is present on
> both my backups and on the live hard drives of the (down) server.  If
> you-all decide you wish to get the current data, you can visit my
> house and bring a Linux machine able to read an ext3 filesystem from a
> USB device.  I can easily give you the cumulative mbox file during
> your visit.  For the roster, I can give you Mailman's stored copy,
> which is in a Python's 'pickle' stored-data format.  You would need to
> figure out how to extract what you need from that.