From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 24 17:45:34 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6505516A41F for ; Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:45:34 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from opusnet.com (mail.opusnet.com [209.210.200.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B066A43D49 for ; Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:45:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: from localhost.localhost [70.98.246.232] by opusnet.com with ESMTP (SMTPD32-8.05) id A23943E200CA; Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:45:29 -0700 Received: from localhost.localhost (localhost.localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id j7OHlClm065990; Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:47:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localhost (8.13.3/8.13.3/Submit) id j7OHl6cE065989; Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:47:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from garys@opusnet.com) To: David Kelly References: <430C568B.5060501@azimainc.com> <44d5o3tm57.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <20050824154854.GA63910@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> From: garys@opusnet.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:47:06 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20050824154854.GA63910@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> (David Kelly's message of "Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:48:54 -0500") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) XEmacs/21.4.17 (Jumbo Shrimp, berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: creating filesystem images X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:45:34 -0000 David Kelly writes: > The advantage of dump/restore is that only the necessary data is > written. With dd all the unused blocks on the media are also written, > including the filesystem, which will probably work on the larger card. If you don't mind educating me further for no particular need... I've long known about the UNIX concept of everything being a string of bytes, but came to the conclusion early in my Linux days that disks couldn't be used as a filesystem after a "dd" unless their cylinders were the same size (or maybe it was just tracks). Has this all gone away with FreeBSD's removal of "block devices" and/or with LBA disks? Can I get always (excepting un-related problems) get usable filesystems after "dd if=/dev/ad1 of=/dev/ad1 bs=b"? As a separate issue, some boot stuff can get messed up, right? Or do partition tables use LBA now too? Seems like they'd have to, but I don't remember reading about it anywhere. > Tar or pax are not bad choices in addition to dump/restore. bsdtar yes, but pax and gtar (tar in 4.x?) don't handle file flags, if OP needs those.