Hi ToddAndMargo! On 2014.07.27 at 22:25:08 -0700, ToddAndMargo wrote next:
> >Why would you *want* that? Seriously? When backups of files, rather > >than filesystems, are much more easily mirrored onto a read-only, > >accessible target to allow people to recover their deleted files > >quickly and cheaply? > > > >Even if you need to back up to tape, AMANDA and half a dozen other > >technologies do a much better job with "tar" or "rsync" based backups. > > > > Hi Nico, > > 1) It is *insanely* fast > > 2) it is command line > > 3) I am the one that does the recovering, not the user. > (I leave the backup drives unmounted when not on use > on purpose! I do not want the user anywhere near > those drives.) "Dump was a stupid program in the first place. Leave it behind." "Dump may work fine for you a thousand times. But it _will_ fail under the right circumstances. And there is nothing you can do about it." http://lwn.net/2001/0503/a/lt-dump.php3 Seriously, don't use dump. Backup software that highly depends on fs implementation is a very bad idea in modern world. Accessing data at low level from fs mounted in r/w (i.e. the data might be modified, so special tricks are required to extract meaningful copy) is just asking for trouble. Note also that dump is 1) highly unportable (in Linux: ext2/3/4 only, *BSD dump isn't compatible with Linux version and so on) 2) not supported in other UNIX operating systems anymore because its design doesn't work with modern file system design. dump/restore don't exist in Solaris 11 at all (official recommendation: zfs dump/restore for whole backups, cpio/tar/rdiff-backup/areca/etc for more agile backups). For AIX IBM recommends tar and cpio for file-level backup as modern replacements (http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/aix/administrator/backuprecovery/Backup-and-Restore-With-AIX) If are 100% sure that you need fs-level backup instead of file-level backup, then don't ask for things impossible by definition (restoring fs-level backup to another fs). Yes, dump/restore are fast but they are able to do it by duplicating parts of kernel fs implementation in userspace, which is why there will be irresistible problems with them. -- Vladimir