On Thu, 2023-08-10 at 22:03 +0000, Minecraftchest1 wrote: > This post on the U&L Stack Exchange sitr summs it up fairly well. > https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/18157. > > In short, `lost+found` is a place for fscheck to link filesystem > entries that don't have an entry anywhere on the file system, during > a filesystem check. Chances are, the files there were bring deleted, > but weren't fully removed from the file system due to an open handle > on > the file. If you aren't specifically looking for a file that got lost > due to a system crash, the files there likely aren't relavent > and can be safely ignored. > > > On August 10, 2023 9:46:27 PM UTC, Default User > <hunguponcont...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Thu, 2023-08-10 at 21:45 +0200, Nicolas George wrote: > > > Default User (12023-08-10): > > > > And, if /lost+found should be excluded, then shouldn't > > > > "lost+found" > > > > in > > > > any other directories be excluded from backups as well? Why/why > > > > not? > > > > > > > > > > Before anybody answers all your question, there is something that > > > needs > > > checking: > > > > > > Do you know what lost+found is for? > > > > > > If not, please read some documentation about it. The explanation > > > of > > > its > > > function contains the answer to the question I left quoted above. > > > > > > Regards, > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi, Nicholas. > > > > Well, I did read some documentation, and I have at least a > > rudimentary > > understanding of fsck and lost+found. > > > > Unfortunately, I regret to say that I did not find that the answer > > to > > the question(s) about lost+found in the original post were > > contained in > > the explanation(s) of its function - at least in what I have read > > so > > far. > > > > Or, maybe I'm just stupid. > > > > I'm sorry if I have bothered you. > >
Three of my mount points, each of which is on a separate partition, have lost+found directories: /lost+found /home/lost+found /var/lost+found All of these appear to be empty. Of these, I have rsnapshot configured to exclude: /lost+found but the other two: /home/lost+found /var/lost+found ARE currently being backed up. The backups are to an external usb hard drive, mounted as: /media/[user]/MSD00001 which has its own lost+found: /media/[user]/MSD00001/lost+found which also appears to be empty. I have read a number of things online about fsck and lost+found, including the previously mentioned: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/18157. I think I understand the basic concept of how fsck puts stray files and file parts in lost+found, and (in theory) how to manually extract whole and partial files from lost+found. Fortunately, since my lost+found directories are all empty, I have no "raw material" to practice extraction on. Now at this point, it seems that I could: 1) Continue to back up /home/lost+found and /var/lost+found, but NOT back up /lost+found. 2) Start backing up /home/lost+found AND /var/lost+found AND /lost+found. 3) Start NOT backing up /home/lost+found OR /var/lost+found OR /lost+found. What is everyone else doing about backing up, or not backing up, the various lost+found directories on their systems? Bonus points for why you do it that way! :)