[gentoo-user] Re: How to move ext4 partition

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

On 2023-09-20, Victor Ivanov <vic.m.ivanov@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Sept 2023 at 22:29, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> That depends on how long it takes me to decide on tar vs. rsync and
>> what the appropriate options are.
>
> I've done this a number of times for various reasons over the last 1-2
> years, most recently a few months ago due to hard drive swap, and I
> find tar works just fine:
>
> $ tar -cpf /path/to/backup.tar --xattrs --xattrs-include='*.*' -C / .
>
> Likewise to extract, but make sure "--xattrs" is present

Yep, that's pretty much what I decided on based on the tar command
shown at

   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Stage

Interestingly, the Arch Linux Wiki recommends using bsdtar because
"GNU tar with --xattrs will not preserve extended attributes".

> Provided backup space isn't an issue, I wouldn't bother with
> compression. It could be a lot quicker too depending on the size of
> your root partition.

Both the drive being "fixed" and the backup drive are in a USB3
attached dual slot drive dock, so I'm thinking compression might be
worthwhile.

> Just make sure you update /etc/fstab and bootloader config file with
> the new filesystem UUID or partition indices.

I always forget one or the other until after I try to boot the first
time.  That's why I keep systemrescuecd and Gentoo minimal install
USB drives on hand.

--
Grant