backup a partition table with gpart(8)

[Marcel Moolenaar]

On Nov 18, 2010, at 2:53 AM, Andrey V. Elsukov wrote:

> Hi, Marcel and All.
> 
> I'm thinking about such feature like ability to dump partition
> table into file from which it can be recovered in the future.
> Also it can be used to copy partition table to another device.
> 
> At the moment i think that just print out a list of commands that
> should be done to create the same table it is the easiest way.
> For example:
>> gpart show ada1
> =>       34  320172989  ada1  GPT  (153G)
>         34        512     1  freebsd-boot  (256K)
>        546    8388608     2  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
>    8389154  311783869     3  freebsd-zfs  (149G)
> 
>> gpart dump -f x ada1
> geom part create -s gpt -f x ada1
> geom part add -b 34 -s 512 -i 1 -t freebsd-boot -f x ada1
> geom part add -b 546 -s 8388608 -i 2 -t freebsd-swap -f x ada1
> geom part add -b 8389154 -s 311783869 -i 3 -t freebsd-zfs -f x ada1
> 
> Any comments and ideas are welcome.

I think you're on the right track. A binary dump is definitely
not useful. Dumping in a replayable form definitely has its
advantages. I have no strong opinions yet as to the exact form
and/or shape (i.e. script vs. XML).

-- 
Marcel Moolenaar
xcllnt at mac.com