Kenneth Porter wrote:
--On Friday, July 01, 2005 8:26 PM -0300 Pedro Fernandes Macedo <> wrote:
I'd avoid to use dump/restore.. Use tar + gzip or tar + bz2. You'll get
good compression rates and all permissions will be kept.
If you use dump , you're copying *everything* from the disk, including
the data structures used to store the data and permissions on disk,
which
is a waste of space.
Oh? Dump records the files contiguously, so there's no need for any
structures beyond the metadata in the inode (those same pesky things
that tar saves). dump also handles sparse files (the gigantic ones
that have no actual space allocated) correctly. (It may be that tar
does that as well. I haven't checked recently.) dump accesses the raw
disk, so it can back up files hidden by mount points. (OTOH, restore
reads through the filesystem, so it can't verify files hidden by mount
points.) The latest dump backs up extended attributes. Does tar do
that? dump is capable of compression.
Probably I made a wrong assumption then. But I still preffer to use tar
for backups for its portability.. Try to restore a filesystem from a
dump backup when you dont have a machine with the same OS anymore.. (or
with an OS that has the same tools)... Not very fun... (I've had to
restore a dump from a solaris machine and no linux machine worked for
that)...
--
Pedro Macedo
