On 05/10/2013 11:55 AM, Pavel Machek wrote: > Hi! > > On systems like linux, cp / -a --one-file-system (destination) will > not copy whole root filesystem. It is not cp's fault, but the > behaviour is quite surprising to the users, so maybe it would be worth > warning in man page? > > Something like > > -x, --one-file-system > stay on this file system > > Note that on systems that allow mounts over non-empty > directories (like Linux), cp / -ax (destination) will > not copy whole filesystem. In particular, content of > /dev will not be usually copied, because distributions > mount tmpfs over /dev. > > [Ok, there's hopefully better wording...?]
Well this issue is not restricted to -x of course, but I suppose it's might be a good place to put a warning. I suppose you could give the advice to ensure that all mounts in a tree should be unmounted to ensure that the base file system contents are copied. That info would be more appropriate in the texinfo manual, than the man page I would think. thanks, Pádraig.
