From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 7 13:49:05 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 4A7641065679 for ; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 13:49:05 +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 0BBD98FC15 for ; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 13:49:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: from wonkity.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by wonkity.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n97Dn3rf018685; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 07:49:03 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Received: from localhost (wblock@localhost) by wonkity.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) with ESMTP id n97Dn3dH018682; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 07:49:03 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wblock@wonkity.com) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 07:49:03 -0600 (MDT) From: Warren Block To: Philip Jocks In-Reply-To: <9CC197E2-43F9-4583-9DE6-EDC51E1618F0@netzkommune.de> Message-ID: References: <9CC197E2-43F9-4583-9DE6-EDC51E1618F0@netzkommune.de> 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-4.2.2 (wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:49:03 -0600 (MDT) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: dump_snapshot file 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: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:49:05 -0000 On Wed, 7 Oct 2009, Philip Jocks wrote: > I had a file /usr/.snap/dump_snapshot being about 15GB in size, which I > removed because the partition was filling up. > The file's date was always rather current, so I'm wondering, what it was for? > I did do a level 0 dump with -0 and -Lau parameters a few weeks ago and > always do dumps on other boxes, but never saw a file in the .snap directory > growing. For the other partitions, there are no such files, that's why I'm > wondering. > Maybe someone can shed some light on this for me. man -P 'less +/-L' dump explains it a bit. The snapshot file is supposed to go away after dump completes, but in your case dump died or was killed before it unlinked the file. On small filesystems, -L is quick enough to not make a noticeable difference. /usr can be huge, and there's a long pause while it makes that snapshot and doesn't seem to be doing anything useful. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA