[gentoo-user] Re: Ghosting a Ext3 partition

[gentoo-user] Re: Ghosting a Ext3 partition

[davecode]

"What supports what" is a good reason for non-filesystem backups.  For
example partimage has trouble with XFS (still...after all these
years...).  A program like dd doesn't care the fs.  Call it a device
backup if you like.  This is your basic choice in backup - device or fs.
 Me personally, dd_rescue - far better than raw dd.

Your backup strategy has implications for partitioning Linux.  I make
backup partitions with the same byte count.  But that's over the top for
most.  They don't need to match exactly for dev bkups.  And of course
you don't go dev-to-dev all the time, sometimes dev-to-file and
file-to-dev.  Don't forget the MBR which dd can backup:  dd if=/dev/hdX
bs=512 count=1 of=MBR.dd

Who knows what Linux formats Ghost may or may not support.  It's passe
even for Windows.  They use DOS drivers for everything.  That's right
16-bit DOS.  I am amazed Norton can make money selling stuff like that. 
Norton may have hosed your fs.

For repairs and backup it's better to boot something like www.grml.org
live CD with lots of good admin tools and fs support.  You can run ext3
repairs from that.  Man e2fsck or whatnot.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Ghosting a Ext3 partition

[Crayon Shin Chan]

On Sunday 02 March 2008, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> "What supports what" is a good reason for non-filesystem backups.  For
> example partimage has trouble with XFS (still...after all these
> years...).  A program like dd doesn't care the fs.  Call it a device
> backup if you like.  This is your basic choice in backup - device or
> fs. Me personally, dd_rescue - far better than raw dd.

The advantage of something like partimage, which knows about the 
filesystem being backed up, is that it can back up only the used portions 
of the fs. So eg if you're backing up a 20GB partition of which only 1GB 
is in use, then using partimage it will be very quick and the resulting 
image very small.

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Crayon
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[gentoo-user] Re: Re: Ghosting a Ext3 partition

[Michael Schmarck]

Crayon Shin Chan <crayon.shin.chan.uk@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday 02 March 2008, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
>> "What supports what" is a good reason for non-filesystem backups.  For
>> example partimage has trouble with XFS (still...after all these
>> years...).  A program like dd doesn't care the fs.  Call it a device
>> backup if you like.  This is your basic choice in backup - device or
>> fs. Me personally, dd_rescue - far better than raw dd.
> 
> The advantage of something like partimage, which knows about the
> filesystem being backed up, is that it can back up only the used portions
> of the fs.

Yes, it can. But you achieve the same (only used stuff is backed up)
with a simpler tool like "tar" as well.

> So eg if you're backing up a 20GB partition of which only 1GB 
> is in use, then using partimage it will be very quick and the resulting
> image very small.

Then the tar file will also be just 1GB.

I really don't see the benefit in using things like partimage or
Ghost.

Michael

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Re: Ghosting a Ext3 partition

[cypherstrong]

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Another way to do (I do it actually)

Is to get a drive with ext3 partition for example
Create a directory for your backup

and use Rsync to copy any file with differential feature.

First time could take a long time, next time are very fast.

To backup everythink on the system, I run the single use mode,
It kill all the application runned ... so after, I mount bind root fs and over 
sub fs in tmp dir, mount my backup dir in another tmp dir
and run mirror with rsync

Fast, excellent, could easyly be migrate on another kind of server, or could 
restore only some filesystem.

It's good !

Good luck

Le Wednesday 05 March 2008 12:55:41 Michael Schmarck, vous avez écrit :
> Crayon Shin Chan <crayon.shin.chan.uk@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday 02 March 2008, davecode@nospammail.net wrote:
> >> "What supports what" is a good reason for non-filesystem backups.  For
> >> example partimage has trouble with XFS (still...after all these
> >> years...).  A program like dd doesn't care the fs.  Call it a device
> >> backup if you like.  This is your basic choice in backup - device or
> >> fs. Me personally, dd_rescue - far better than raw dd.
> >
> > The advantage of something like partimage, which knows about the
> > filesystem being backed up, is that it can back up only the used portions
> > of the fs.
>
> Yes, it can. But you achieve the same (only used stuff is backed up)
> with a simpler tool like "tar" as well.
>
> > So eg if you're backing up a 20GB partition of which only 1GB
> > is in use, then using partimage it will be very quick and the resulting
> > image very small.
>
> Then the tar file will also be just 1GB.
>
> I really don't see the benefit in using things like partimage or
> Ghost.
>
> Michael



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