Backups and other lies

kestre88 — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 21:42:22 +0000

Every sysadmin I know has the same secret: we do not actually
back up half the things we tell other people to back up.

I have been doing this for a decade. My recovery codes live in a
directory called notes-and-codes, and I have been telling
myself for at least two years that I will move them to a proper
vault "next weekend". Next weekend has not arrived.

I finally decided to put them somewhere sensible. Somewhere I can
get to them from any machine. Somewhere that at least has version
history so I can see when I last touched them.

If you know me, you know where. If you do not know me, this is a
boring post about bad habits and you can skip it.

A backup you have never tested is not a backup. It is hope with
a filename.

Anyway. I moved everything to GitHub. My handle there is the same
as everywhere else. If you are the kind of person who clicks
through profiles, you will find it in about thirty seconds.

-- M.

DEV Community: kestre88

Backups and other lies