From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Goswin von Brederlow Subject: Re: Converting system to raid Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:50:35 +0200 Message-ID: <87y6u7o9pg.fsf@frosties.localdomain> References: <003801c9b96d$21a0f420$0a00a8c0@vorg> <20090410132233.GA15442@cthulhu.home.robinhill.me.uk> <008001c9ba12$3ac92c10$0a00a8c0@vorg> <20090410195006.GA21242@cthulhu.home.robinhill.me.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: In-Reply-To: (Jon Lewis's message of "Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:40:37 -0400 (EDT)") Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Jon Lewis Cc: Robin Hill , linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Jon Lewis writes: > On Fri, 10 Apr 2009, Robin Hill wrote: > >> On Fri Apr 10, 2009 at 12:22:44PM -0700, Timothy D. Lenz wrote: >> >>> How can cp not work? every guide I found used ether cp or rsync. Even >>> guides on seting up an auto backup system use cp or rsync. >>> Seems the only files/folders that shouldn't get copied are the block >>> device ones that are created at boot and are not really on the drive. >>> >> They'll all get copied, but you won't necessarily get the correct >> contents. Because the system is in use: >> - files will be being written, so you'll either get a partial copy, or >> an old version. >> - files may be locked, so you won't be able to copy them. >> >> Doing a backup of a running system using cp/rsync will work fine for a >> lot of things (especially for config files, documents, etc) but will >> almost certainly fail miserably for some (databases for example). What one can easily do is rsync the running system, then init 1 and rsync again to get all the changed or blocked files. In runlevel 1 there should be nothing left blocking files. MfG Goswin