On Mon, Oct 09, 2017 at 10:44:51AM +0200, Carlos Maiolino wrote: > Hi. > > > On Sat, Oct 07, 2017 at 02:43:43PM +0000, Luciano ES wrote: > > I have a few questions and I was torn between asking them separately > > and putting them all in one message. I decided for the latter and I > > hope this is not a problem. > > > > Once upon a time, many many years ago, I used to make backup copies > > of my file systems with the 'cp -aux' command, including my live > > root file system. Luckily, I never had to restore any live root file > > system from those backups. They probably would never have worked. > > > > Later on, someone taught me to do it like this: > > > > find /source -xdev -print0 | cpio -pa0V /target > > > > That command is supposed to copy everything, including special files > > (not really sure which) that mere cp or even rsync would not copy. > > I actually used that approach several times, including restoration, > > and it always worked. > > > > For some reason, I stopped making backups of my live root file > > system, but I still backup other partitions with rsync, always with > > the --delete-before parameter, so the target is always an exact copy > > of the source. > > > > I have been using XFS for a few years and thought that maybe it's > > time I enjoyed all the benefits of the XFS management tools. > > However, I am uncertain about things I haven't been able to find in > > the documentation or even on the Web: > > > > Question #1: > > Does xfsdump really copy EVERYTHING? Can I backup a full live root > > file system with it and expect a restored copy to boot and run > > uneventfully? Or should I rather do a 'hard' image with xfs_copy? > > xfs_copy must only be used an unmounted filesystem (or read-only, frozen, etc), > so, unless you want to freeze/unmount your FS everytime you do a xfs_copy, then > xfs_copy is not what you are looking for I'll just say this: xfs_copy is not a backup tool. It's a filesystem image replication tool designed for fast, efficient 1-to-many duplication of a golden filesystem image to multiple drives, such as is done in manufacturing lines.... Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Chinner david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-xfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
