That is almost exactly what I was after. Just one thing though... If I was to just take a backup of the COW device, assuming the underlying origin had not changed, would I just be able to restore this? (i.e. gzip < /path/to/cowdevice > /path/to/backupfile.gz and restore with zcat /path/to/backup/file.gz > /path/to/cowdevice, or similar.) Would this work with a newly created snapshot? (ie backup as above then lvcreate -s -n newsnapshot /path/to/origin; zcat /path/to/backup/file.gz > /path/to/new/cow/device) I will just emphasize that the UNDERLYING ORIGIN WILL NEVER CHANGE, it is never mounted, never used for anything except as a snapshot origin. -----Original Message----- From: linux-lvm-bounces@redhat.com [mailto:linux-lvm-bounces@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Bas van Schaik Sent: 10 March 2008 09:59 To: LVM general discussion and development Subject: Re: Restore LVM snapshot without creating a full dumpto an "external" device? Lars Ellenberg wrote: > On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 11:05:45PM +0100, Bas van Schaik wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> When I started to use LVM snapshots, I presumed that it was easy to >> restore a system to such a snapshot. As far as I can see now, this >> presumption was incorrect... People on the internet write that I should >> dump the whole snapshot using dd and then write it over the original >> volume. This actually implies that I need another device with at least >> the size of the original volume available to dump to. In my situation, >> this means that I need about 2 TB free space to recover this snapshot! >> >> Isn't there a more sophisticated way to restore the snapshot than just >> dumping it? >> 1) create snapshot of /dev/myvolumegroup/myvolume to >> /dev/myvolumegroup/mysnapshot >> 2) dd if=/dev/myvolumegroup/mysnapshot of=/tmp/mysnapshot.dd >> 3) lvremove /dev/myvolumegroup/mysnapshot >> 4) dd if=/tmp/mysnapshot.dd of=/dev/myvolumegroup/myvolume >> > > you got (size-of-your-volume) free space in /tmp? > pretty large /tmp, or pretty small volume, I guess. > > >> Something like: >> 1) lvrevert /dev/myvolumegroup/mysnapshot /dev/myvolumegroup/myvolume >> >> I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, because I think it should be >> fairly easy to restore a COW snapshot. Or am I wrong and missing something? >> > > you may want to investigate the status of > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/StatelessLinux/CachedClient > were it says "The LVM and device-mapper code to allow merging is > awaiting upstream review." > Interesting project, interesting information, but it was last updated 2007-10-19. I'll try Googling for a more recent status, if that is available... > or you can try, at your own risk, the hack below. > > (... lots of excellent details ...) Sounds very plausible, but there are some risks involved here ;). Thanks anyhow, I'll really consider using your perl script when the situation gets critical here... -- Bas _______________________________________________ linux-lvm mailing list linux-lvm@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/ This has been checked by www.blackspider.com _________________________________________________________ Zetex Semiconductors - Solutions for an analog world. http://www.zetex.com http://www.zetex.cn E-MAILS are susceptible to interference. You should not assume that the contents originated from the sender or the Zetex Group or that they have been accurately reproduced from their original form. Zetex accepts no responsibility for information, errors or omissions in this e-mail nor for its use or misuse nor for any act committed or omitted in connection with this communication. If in doubt, please verify the authenticity with the sender. _________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ linux-lvm mailing list linux-lvm@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
