Dump questions

Jerry McAllister jerrymc at msu.edu
Mon Feb 22 03:14:56 UTC 2010


On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 11:03:58AM +0100, Polytropon wrote:

On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:42:50 +0800, Aiza <aiza21 at comclark.com> wrote:
> 1. Using the -L flag to create a snapshot of the
> live running file system.
> 
> ...
>
> Is this the limiting factor that forces a user
> to use (single user mode) for running dump?

The snapshot, as far as the dump is concerned, essentially freezes
the condition of the file system so that dump does not see any changes
while dump is running.

Without the snapshot, files could change or be deleted during the time
it takes dump to finish.  Dump starts by making its own list, by inode,
of all the files to dump.  Then it writes out, first the list, then the 
directories and finally the files and links to the media.  If the files 
change between the time that list is made and things get written to the 
media, you will have an inaccurate representation of the file system.
This can result in error messages if files it expects to be there are missing
It can mean that a mangled image of a file is written in the dump.

Doing a dump in Single User Mode means stopping activity on the system
so there are fewer chances of the above happening.   

Using -L and doing a snapshot will not prevent a dump from being
technically obsolete by the time it gets done, but it will mean that
what gets written to media is internally consistent.  The list it made
will be exactly what is on the backup media and the files are all written
completely as they were when the snapshot was taken with no mangling.

> 
> > 2. What is the worse that will happen if dump is
> run on live file system with out the -L flag?
> 

The index list that is written as part of the dump will not reflect
what is on the dump media.   It may claim a file is there, but it
really is not.

A file or some files are mangled because they are open and being modified
by another process as the dump is reading them.   The file may be either
an inaccurate image or even completely unreadable.

Restore is smart enough to skip over these problems if the file[s] you
are looking to restore are not the ones mangled or deleted.  But, you
could get in to a situation of not being able to restore some things
that you have on media.
 
> 
> Can dump recognize this situation and issue
> an error message?
> 

I don't remember if dump puts out any useful diagnostic.  I think it might
tell you if it cannot file a file whose inode is in its list to write.
But, it is restore that really notices and complains.   If you have room,
you can use restore to 'verify' a dump just by doing a restore of it to
some extra space (maybe even to /dev/null, though I have never tried that
one) and seeing if it makes any complaints.  This, of course, is a long
way to do this, but it might be valuable if it is essential for that
dump to be completely readable in a later situation where the original
is not longer available.  

But, in this situation, then making a -L dump (using a snapshot) is 
really important or even a single user, filesystem unmounted -L dump.

> 
> 3. Can dump be told to only dump a particular
> directory tree? IE /var/log  or /usr/port?

dump only workes on filesystems/partitions.  If you know you will want to 
make dumps on just that directory tree, that is a reason to make a separate
partition/filesystem for it and mount it up.  There is no reason that
/var/log cannot be in its own partition/filesystem separate from /var
and just mounted that way.  Of course, you have to make sure that /var
gets mounted before /var/log.   But, that is not strange.  Many people
make a  separate partition for /usr/home inside of /usr or a /var/db that
is mounted inside of /var.

Now, you can restore just a single file, group of files or a directory
tree out of a dump.   You do not have to restore the whole dump.
So, you can make a dump of a '/var' filesystem if that is what you have
and then if you need to restore just '/var/db' out of it, that is
no problem.   Just make sure you understand where you are putting it
and how you specifiy it in the restore.

But, if you just want a backup copy of a directory tree that is not its 
own partition/filesystem, you must use some other tool, such as tar or
possibly rsync.

////jerry
  
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"


More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list