From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Jan 27 21:37: 0 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from vms4.rit.edu (vms4.isc.rit.edu [129.21.3.15]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B597037B402 for ; Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:36:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from sonic.rit.edu ([129.21.10.28]) by ritvax.isc.rit.edu (PMDF V5.2-32 #40294) with ESMTPA id <01KDL32816X2DSZY95@ritvax.isc.rit.edu> for questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 28 Jan 2002 00:36:43 EST Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 00:34:25 -0500 From: Matt Penna Subject: Re: dump, restore - active vs. inactive filesystem In-reply-to: <15444.42779.986980.179495@guru.mired.org> X-Sender: mdp1261@vmspop.isc.rit.edu To: questions@freebsd.org Cc: Mike Meyer , Jonathan E Fosburgh Message-id: <5.1.0.14.2.20020128000623.028ba430@vmspop.isc.rit.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT References: <121485656@toto.iv> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jonathan and Mike, thanks for the responses! Comments below: At 07:19 PM 1/27/02 -0600, Mike Meyer wrote: >Matt Penna types: > > Does mounting a filesystem read-only mean it's inactive? (I suspect not.) > >A file system mounted read-only is inactive. Thanks for clearing that up! >You have three options. 1) Unmount the file system. 2) Mount the file >system read-only. 3) Dump it in single-user mode, making sure nothing >else is going on on the system. Here's a question (for anyone): In my case, this isn't really a big problem because it's a relatively small server I use for my family and me, as well as anyone else who may bring their laptop or machine over for one reason or another. So, this system is basically two steps away from being run in a sandbox. What's the best way to handle this on a production system? None of the above suggestions is practical on very large volumes that take an extended period of time to back up or on high availability systems. "Just run the dump while the filesystem's mounted read/write and hope for the best," is of course always an option, though perhaps not an ideal one. :) At 08:58 PM 1/27/02 -0600, Jonathan E Fosburgh wrote: >And it is possible that new files were generated >after the map was done that will be on neither the tape nor the table of >contents. Check the names of the missing files. Is it possible they are >just temporary files being generated by an application? Not in this case, Jonathan. The system doesn't really run anything except Samba and the volume was not in active use by anyone when the backup was run, though it was mounted read/write. The whole reason I'm working on this now is because I need to move the machine across town to my new home; the old house still has most of my equipment, but it's vacant so there's no longer any activity on the network there. Samba is really the only process that has anything to do with that filesystem and unless it has a habit of keeping tons of files inaccessable even when no one is working on them - most of the files on the first 10GB tape were missing, as well as a good number on the second tape - I don't think the problem is caused by any running applications. Just for the record, it's possible the tapes are bad and this is a result of tape errors, but I want to make sure I'm actually following the proper procedure so I can make that determination with some certainty and solve the correct problem! Before I made my first post I remounted the filesystem read-only and killed Samba, so another dump is running now. I'll go swap tapes sometime in the next day or so and see how it turns out. Thanks again for the responses! Matt -- Matt Penna mdp1261@rit.edu ICQ: 399825 S0ba on AOLIM "The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very sophisticated idiots." -Dr. Who To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message