What is the best way to image copy a FreeBSD system?

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011, Xn Nooby wrote:

> On Linux I use clonezilla, which understands the EXT3 filesystem, and
> it can skip unused space (I'm using about 3GB out of 1TB).
>
> On FreeBSD, I have to fill the 1TB drive with zero-filled files, then
> delete them, on each partiton, since CloneZilla uses DD+gzip on the
> entire drive.

Some of the development versions of Clonezilla do understand UFS.  It's 
been a few months since I looked at this, and I need to go back and 
figure out exactly which.

> Is there an image-copy backup program that understands the UFS
> file-system? Or perhaps there is a better solution on FreeBSD?

Others have already mentioned good points of dump and restore.  They can 
be used even on mounted partitions, so the system can stay up while a 
backup is running.  Some scripting could make restores as easy as 
Clonezilla.  A bare-metal restore could be made from a modified FreeBSD 
install CD.  Partition the target disk (interactively or not), locate 
the dump files, restore them, then do any interactive fixup needed.