On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 11:10:41AM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote: > [ On Saturday, December 15, 2001 at 12:40:56 (+0100), Christoph Scheeder wrote: ] > > Subject: Re: dump fails with bread and lseek trouble > > > > This pops up every few weeks here on the list, its very simple: > > you are backing up an active filesystem with a tool designed primary for > > backing up filesystems mounted read-only. > > or not mounted at all! ;-)
Hi, Greg! Not that my own favorite, "tar", necessarily does any better in the sense of being guaranteed to always preserve completely consistent data from an active filesystem. If I make corresponding changes in files "a" and "b" during backup, but backup grabs "a" before the change and "b" after, my restore won't get back quite what I want. But, since it doesn't attempt to descend inside the filesystem's data structures, but only uses the user-eye view of what's there, it won't produce quite so many threatening messages. Bottom line is that it is difficult to make a good picture with a slow shutter of something that's moving fast. It's up to the admin to decide, case-by-case, when the picture is good enough. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Wilder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Technical Manager & Editor SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549 Phone: 206-782-8808 Seattle, WA 98155-0549 URL http://embedded.linuxjournal.com/ -----------------------------------------------------------------
