On Mon, 9 Oct 2017 10:44:51 +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 You say that as if it were a bad thing. What is the problem with freezing the file system every time I do an xfs_copy? I would likely do that once a month, perhaps once a week at most, so why not? What is inherently bad about freezing the file system for a few minutes? -- Luciano ES >> -- 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
