From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 8 22:08:02 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1E58106566B for ; Fri, 8 Jun 2012 22:08:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from roberthuff@rcn.com) Received: from smtp02.lnh.mail.rcn.net (smtp02.lnh.mail.rcn.net [207.172.157.102]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 264388FC08 for ; Fri, 8 Jun 2012 22:08:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mr17.lnh.mail.rcn.net ([207.172.157.37]) by smtp02.lnh.mail.rcn.net with ESMTP; 08 Jun 2012 18:07:48 -0400 Received: from smtp04.lnh.mail.rcn.net (smtp04.lnh.mail.rcn.net [207.172.157.104]) by mr17.lnh.mail.rcn.net (MOS 4.3.4-GA) with ESMTP id BNL09719; Fri, 8 Jun 2012 18:07:46 -0400 Received: from 209-6-86-84.c3-0.smr-ubr2.sbo-smr.ma.cable.rcn.com (HELO jerusalem.litteratus.org.litteratus.org) ([209.6.86.84]) by smtp04.lnh.mail.rcn.net with ESMTP; 08 Jun 2012 18:07:46 -0400 From: Robert Huff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <20434.30642.31558.246729@jerusalem.litteratus.org> Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2012 18:07:46 -0400 To: "Ronald F. Guilmette" In-Reply-To: <2903.1339191855@tristatelogic.com> References: <2903.1339191855@tristatelogic.com> X-Mailer: VM 7.17 under 21.5 (beta28) "fuki" XEmacs Lucid X-Junkmail-Whitelist: YES (by domain whitelist at mr17.lnh.mail.rcn.net) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: 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: Fri, 08 Jun 2012 22:08:02 -0000 Ronald F. Guilmette writes: > I got a lot of disks here, so that part is not a problem. I just > need to make sure that I'm gonna do this the Right Way[tm]. > (I've already been making my own ham-fisted disk-to-disk backups > in the past, but I'm sure that the way I have been doing that is > sub-optimal, so I'm here seeking knowledge of how to do this the > Right Way.) > > The bottom line is this... I know how to use cpio, and would like > to use it to create a complete and _bootable_ backup of my main > system disk. (My main system disk has only one BIOS partition, > and that is sub-divided into the usual set of FreeBSD partitions, > you know, /, /dev, /tmp, /usr, /var, /usr/compat/linux/proc, and > /var/named/dev.) As far as I know, the only way guaranteed to preserve metadata is dump/restore. See previous (not necessarily recent) discussion (on this list, and possibly in the Handbook) for more information. Robert Huff