portable server - putting all config files on a USB drive

[Nigel Dodd <nigeldodd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am trying to build a linux, apache, mysql, php server that I can easily move from machine to machine.

I am assessing the feasibility of putting all the configuration files, the virtual server defining files (those in sites-enabled etc), the website files (normally found in /var/www/....) on a removable disk. In addition to those are the mysql database files and config files and the php files but those aren't the concern of this group.

My understanding is that apache2 is compiled to expect to find its main config file in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf but that in that file I can change the lines

 ServerRoot "/etc/apache2"

 .

 Include /etc/apache2/conf.d/

 .

 Include /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/

to point to a different location i.e. the usb disk.

I think I will leave 

LockFile /var/lock/apache2/accept.lock

alone.

Inside all the virtual server files such as /usbdisk/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/mysite

I need to change the 

DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite

lines to /usbdisk/var/www/mysite

My concern is that I am missing something or that this is a silly idea. I can't find any information about making a portable server and this adds to my concerns. 

Perhaps I should say why i am doing this. I have had various computers go down due to hardware failure. I have had backups or I have transferred the files before ultimate disk failure. But each time it takes me a day or so to set up a new server. I think that if all the files were kept on a usb disk which itself was mirrored then by changing a few directives in the config files for apache, mysql and php I would be able to mount the usb drive and away we go.

Nigel

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