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Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:03:24 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Nerius Landys <nlandys@gmail.com>
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	(wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:03:25 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Best procedure for full backup of live system
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On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Nerius Landys wrote:

> My question is, what is the recommended procedure of taking a full
> backup on a live system?  Ideally, if my hard drive were to crash, I
> would like to have such a backup so as to make it possible to copy
> over the entire backup to a new identical harddrive without doing any
> reinstall or configuration.  Should I use tar/gzip?  dump?  What exact
> command should I use?

dump(8) with the -L option will take a snapshot of a live filesystem and 
then back that up.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA