Re: Questions about backups with XFS

[Luciano ES <lucmove@gmail.com>]

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
>>