From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jun 10 02:48:15 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6908D106566B for ; Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:48:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from wonkity.com (wonkity.com [67.158.26.137]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 256508FC12 for ; Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:48:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q5A2mEbK072562; Sat, 9 Jun 2012 20:48:14 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.5/8.14.5/Submit) with ESMTP id q5A2mE58072559; Sat, 9 Jun 2012 20:48:14 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 20:48:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" In-Reply-To: <12119.1339295453@tristatelogic.com> Message-ID: References: <12119.1339295453@tristatelogic.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:48:14 -0600 (MDT) Cc: Arthur Chance , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Making a bootable backup (hard)disk... how? 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: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 02:48:15 -0000 On Sat, 9 Jun 2012, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote: > > Also, I don't like backups taking longer than absolutely necessary, and > this is why I am specifically _not_ attracted to either the dd solution > or to dump/restore, because as I understand it, with either of these methods > you end up copying perhaps a metric buttload worth of unallocated free > disk space. No, that is one of the biggest advantages of dump over dd. dump knows UFS, and only copies occupied sectors and needed information. That's why it can be restored file-by-file or to a partition of a different size. > Also, in one case, one of my partitions has one directory that contains > a really massive amount of stuff, and I specifically _don't_ need any of > that particular stuff (in that one directory) backed up. So again, I'm > looking at tar or cpio or perhaps pax. (Of course cpio is more full-featured > than tar, and I don't really know anything about pax, so that leaves me > with cpio.) Directories and files can be skipped with the nodump flag. > P.S. It really is a Damn Shame[tm] that nobody ever hacked FreeBSD cpio > to make it be able to copy (a) the extra file flag/mode bits and/or (b) > file ACLs and/or (c) file attributes. A quick search shows dump should support ACLs. The other stuff is also there. Try it. http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/backup.html