From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 16 00:42:02 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DFC0106566B for ; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:42:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nlandys@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qy0-f203.google.com (mail-qy0-f203.google.com [209.85.221.203]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BED588FC16 for ; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:42:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qyk42 with SMTP id 42so1138639qyk.28 for ; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:42:01 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=3SzpZ1bS6elwXYut5R5ESW00QU6Yu2bJn/oM0sskTo8=; b=mRy2QKm/kBtUzkefuGbQ0bhyzY37HQKoDjTA0bZlxtQVRnb/8GI0OjDiqHCRMSL+Oc VGvIRb0oKDQCWS0/UTcVJpk04Uizl2Da250fibd7n0JsIC3+gvfwSARaLD3weYyudKNZ yd6KPW8dHde3Qt7IHSyaI0ckRbIszize9X+NI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=PrTShNyLooBbNSyKDiWrq4LtuYicWrRZMUsUoXlTps0+29Om3N8CDT1tDwrpjMY0Lz tJvmogh6k7sUQCsQGOtnFO32OeOMStt5jUv2rzUgQu9NDMJHyT71atFqEmQPqnk8v7Dw 37kqcmfx8FXVHOk+AU2ziUmQb2InRTwHHr9As= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.19.21 with SMTP id y21mr119078qca.27.1255653720981; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:42:00 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20091015143947.GB54613@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> References: <560f92640910142042tc46f1e3lb81ac1e4528a44ab@mail.gmail.com> <20091015143947.GB54613@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:42:00 -0700 Message-ID: <560f92640910151742h33393131j9974c23db37602b8@mail.gmail.com> From: Nerius Landys To: Jerry McAllister Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Best procedure for full backup of live system X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:42:02 -0000 Thanks for your help guys. I have decided to attempt the following. With a filesystem snapshot, take a dump 0 of all filesystems. Back up these dumps to a 500GB disk I have sitting at home (the server I'm backing up is in a data center). Perform this maybe once a week or once a month. I am now looking at this: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/backup-basics.html#AEN25994 For step 1, I'm a little unsure what they are talking about. I assume that to begin with I would do this: > bsdlabel ad4s1 Since that is my disk and it has one partition. I would probably also want to do this: > dd if=/dev/ad4 of=MBR_backup bs=512 count=1 to back up the MBR, so I can recontruct the boot program and partition table. But they don't mention that in the Handbook. Then it says to back up /etc/fstab, but I'm not quite sure how I'd use this in a restore. Lastly, it says save all boot messages. Do they mean the output of dmesg? Why is this useful? Of course I would complement all of these things with the actual dump 0 of all sectors on the primary partition of the single hard drive that I have. My server should boot fine with the FreeBSD CDROM (fixit), because it uses a subset of the GENERIC kernel device drivers. So I probably don't need to pay attention to the instuctions talking about floppies. Am I correct in all of this?