I wanted to add my user to the sudoers file so I typed in 'visudo. and put
my userid where I figure it should go. Now whenever I type 'sudo <?>' the
output of the shell is:

bmike1@PresarioLapTop1:/home$ sudo mkdir /backups
sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 14
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin


so I think I'll go in and put it the way it was:

bmike1@PresarioLapTop1:/home$ sudo visudo
sudo: parse error in /etc/sudoers near line 14
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

Here is the sudoers file:

#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
# directly modifying this file.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
Defaults        env_reset
Defaults        mail_badpass
Defaults
 secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

# Host alias specification
bmike1

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives:

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

HEY! Look at that. I put my user in the wrong space. I meant to put it
under '# User alias specification' but now I see that is wrong; I needed to
put it under '# User privilege specification'.
Also, what about the "ALL's". What do they mean?
Can I fix this with VI? I'm not just doing it because I don't want to mess
this up so bad I need to reinstall
:-)~MIKE~(-:


On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Michael Havens <bmike1@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> Okay Matt (or anyone else who wants to answer this), could I do this:
> first I make a directory in the usb called 'bmike1-backup'
>
> #!/bin/bash
> sudo mkdir /backups <-create backups dir
> sudo mount /sdc1/backup-bmike1 /backups <- tell computer to see a
> directory in the usb drive as /backups
> rsync -av /home/bmike1
> sudo umount backups; sudo rmdir backups <-make everything like it was
>
>
>> On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Matt Graham <danceswithcrows@usa.net>wrote:
>>
>>> 1. Plug this disk in.  Usually, removable disks have 1 partition of type
>>> FAT32
>>> or NTFS covering their whole space.  (Check that this is the case, if
>>> not,
>>> something weird may be going on.)
>>>
>>> 2. Make a filesystem with a label on this partition.  "mke2fs -j -L
>>> MY_BACKUPS
>>> /dev/sdN1" .  Find what N is by looking at the output of dmesg | tail.
>>>
>>> 3. Make an entry for the partition you made in your /etc/fstab :
>>>
>>> LABEL=MY_BACKUPS  /mnt/backup  ext3  noauto,users,noatime  0  0
>>>
>>> 4. As root, mkdir /mnt/backup if it doesn't exist, then mount this
>>> partition
>>> on /mnt/backup , mkdir /mnt/backup/USER , and chown USER
>>> /mnt/backup/USER .
>>>
>>> 5. Make a shell script sort of like this:
>>>
>>> #!/bin/bash
>>> if [[ $1 == '--help' || $1 == '-h' ]] ; then
>>>     echo "backs up ~USER to backup drive."
>>>     exit;
>>> fi
>>>
>>> if mount | grep /mnt/backup > /dev/null ; then
>>>     rsync -av --delete-after /home/USER/ /mnt/backup/USER
>>> else
>>>     echo "backup disk not mounted.  Trying to mount it."
>>>     mount /mnt/backup
>>>     if mount | grep /mnt/backup > /dev/null ; then
>>>          echo "Is the disk plugged in?  Can't mount, bailing."
>>>          exit 1
>>>     fi
>>>     rsync -av --delete-after /home/USER/ /mnt/backup/USER
>>>     umount /mnt/backup
>>> fi
>>>
>>> 6. Any time you want to make a backup, plug your disk in, and run that
>>> shell
>>> script.  The initial rsync will take some time.  Subsequent rsyncs will
>>> take a
>>> couple of minutes.
>>>
>>> This is AFAICT a reasonably good way to do things, because it doesn't
>>> take a
>>> lot of time to keep your backup up to date, and restoring is as simple as
>>> mounting the backup disk and copying things over.  Since there is only 1
>>> backup, though, you could delete something, make a backup, then realize
>>> you
>>> needed that thing.  I have 2 backup disks and rotate them every few days
>>> to
>>> make that less likely.
>>>
>>> You could even get fancy and use dm-crypt to back up your stuff to an
>>> encrypted disk, which is useful in some situations like when you want to
>>> leave
>>> the disk somewhere that's not under your direct control like a friend's
>>> house.
>>>  Using dm-crypt makes things a bit more complex, but I can write another
>>> message about that.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Matt G / Dances With Crows
>>> The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
>>> There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org
>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>