From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 4 18:32:22 2009 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 D04C6106564A for ; Mon, 4 May 2009 18:32:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from doug@lebanon.atchurch.org) Received: from lebanon.atchurch.org (h69-129-174-18.applwi.dedicated.static.tds.net [69.129.174.18]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98BC98FC14 for ; Mon, 4 May 2009 18:32:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from doug@lebanon.atchurch.org) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lebanon.atchurch.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7185121FA; Mon, 4 May 2009 13:16:32 -0500 (CDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at atchurch.org Received: from lebanon.atchurch.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (lebanon.atchurch.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id Q3ZW0PSIgdA3; Mon, 4 May 2009 13:16:30 -0500 (CDT) Received: by lebanon.atchurch.org (Postfix, from userid 1001) id B2F1321F8; Mon, 4 May 2009 13:16:30 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 13:16:30 -0500 From: Doug Poland To: Jonathan McKeown Message-ID: <20090504181629.GC96593@polands.org> References: <200905011707.n41H7M6b021540@dc.cis.okstate.edu> <200905041031.16748.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> <20090504135914.GB84251@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> <200905041630.53832.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200905041630.53832.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.19 (2009-01-05) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: When a System Dies; Getting back in operation again. 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: Mon, 04 May 2009 18:32:23 -0000 On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 04:30:53PM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote: > On Monday 04 May 2009 15:59:14 Jerry McAllister wrote: > > On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 10:31:16AM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote: > > > > > If you have kept the right information beforehand, you can > > > actually restore your dumps onto ``bare metal'' without doing a > > > partial install first, and with the same newfs settings for each > > > partition as you originally had. You need to use bsdlabel and > > > dumpfs -m and keep the output for rebuilding. The rest of this > > > message is the details. > > > > If you have a specific reason to want your new filesystems' to have > > identical superblock info, you can use dumpfs -m, but you don't need > > to worry about all that. ? Just fdisk, bsdlabel and then let newfs > > take its defaults. > > Which of your filesystems currently has softupdates disabled? You may > not care - but the point is that using dumpfs in the way I described > will preserve that information (along with all the other tuning > options) for people who do care. > > If you're restoring a complete machine from backup, the less you have > to think about, the better. Knowing that my filesystems are going to > be restored with whatever tuning options I was previously running > with, without my having to try and remember, gives me peace of mind > ahead of time. > Excellent discussion. Along the lines of "the less you have to think about", is there a technique for restoring geom meta-data on bare metal? Say you have a system built upon gmirror and gjournal. One must manually create the mirror and journal before restoring from dump. But the vital geom meta-data describing your mirror/journal is on the dump. -- Regards, Doug