From: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
To: Luciano ES <lucmove@gmail.com>, linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Questions about backups with XFS
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2017 21:57:01 +1100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20171009105701.GL3666@dastard> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20171009084451.yj7fvv6wqra27vuo@hades.localdomain>
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@fromorbit.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-10-09 10:57 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-10-07 14:43 Questions about backups with XFS Luciano ES
2017-10-09 8:44 ` Carlos Maiolino
2017-10-09 10:57 ` Dave Chinner [this message]
2017-10-12 1:03 ` Luciano ES
2017-10-09 15:08 ` Carlos E. R.
2017-10-12 0:58 ` Luciano ES
2017-10-12 5:13 ` Keith Keller
2017-11-06 3:29 ` Supposedly identical file system wastes space Carlos E. R.
2017-11-06 6:19 ` Dave Chinner
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