From nobody Fri May 22 00:51:31 2026 X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mlmmj.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4gM6DD32dtz6fQZR for ; Fri, 22 May 2026 00:51:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4gM6DB5c1Gz3Fm0 for ; Fri, 22 May 2026 00:51:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of rfg@tristatelogic.com designates 69.62.255.118 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=rfg@tristatelogic.com Received: by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix, from userid 1237) id 7609D4E6B4; Thu, 21 May 2026 17:51:31 -0700 (PDT) From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Using dump/restore to combine partitions? List-Id: User questions List-Archive: https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-questions List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org List-Id: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: List-Owner: Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <36210.1779411091.1@segfault.tristatelogic.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Thu, 21 May 2026 17:51:31 -0700 Message-ID: <36211.1779411091@segfault.tristatelogic.com> X-Spamd-Result: default: False [2.17 / 15.00]; SUBJECT_ENDS_QUESTION(1.00)[]; NEURAL_SPAM_LONG(1.00)[1.000]; NEURAL_SPAM_MEDIUM(0.96)[0.956]; NEURAL_HAM_SHORT(-0.79)[-0.786]; ONCE_RECEIVED(0.20)[]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+mx]; RCVD_NO_TLS_LAST(0.10)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; RCVD_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:14051, ipnet:69.62.128.0/17, country:US]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROMTLD(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; TO_DN_NONE(0.00)[]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; MISSING_XM_UA(0.00)[]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; MLMMJ_DEST(0.00)[freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[tristatelogic.com]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[] X-Spamd-Bar: ++ X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 4gM6DB5c1Gz3Fm0 I have a bootable FreeBSD system that was partitioned in a way that I disl= ike, and that I would like to now change. The current system contains the foll= owing partitions, which I would like to copy to a fresh new drive while consolid= ating all of these partitions into a new _single_ partition on the new drive. (= The new drive will end up being my new bootable drive.): Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ada0p2 991 618 293 68% / devfs 0 0 0 100% /dev /dev/ada0p4 2973 1357 1378 50% /var /dev/ada0p5 1983 16 1808 1% /var/ftp /dev/ada0p6 991 14 897 2% /tmp /dev/ada0p7 15853 12749 1835 87% /usr /dev/ada0p8 31726 27545 1642 94% /home procfs 0 0 0 100% /proc My question is: How do I accomplish this using dump/restore? My current plan is to boot the system in question from a removable device that will itself contain a full FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE system, mount the targ= et filesystem, perform all of the necessary dump and restore operations, power-off, remove the removable drive, remove the old boot drive and then boot from the new drive. I need to know the exact set of commands necessary to accomplish all this. Assuming that the new (single) bootable partition on the new drive will be pre-formatted (UFS) and mounted as /mnt and that the source partitions described above will end up having all of the same /dev names as listed above, but with "ada0" changed to "ada1", then will the following set of commands accomplish my goal? cd /mnt dump -0f - /dev/ada1p2 | restore -rf - cd /mnt/var dump -0f - /dev/ada1p4 | restore -rf - cd /mnt/var/ftp dump -0f - /dev/ada1p5 | restore -rf - cd /mnt/tmp dump -0f - /dev/ada1p6 | restore -rf - cd /mnt/usr dump -0f - /dev/ada1p7 | restore -rf - cd /mnt/home dump -0f - /dev/ada1p8 | restore -rf - Thanks in advance for any & all guidance.