From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 10 21:28:07 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E2A016A4CE for ; Tue, 10 May 2005 21:28:07 +0000 (GMT) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (clunix.cl.msu.edu [35.9.2.10]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 01EF043D83 for ; Tue, 10 May 2005 21:28:05 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu) Received: from clunix.cl.msu.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) j4ALS4JF026797; Tue, 10 May 2005 17:28:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jerrymc@localhost) by clunix.cl.msu.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.2/Submit) id j4ALS4Kj026796; Tue, 10 May 2005 17:28:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Jerry McAllister Message-Id: <200505102128.j4ALS4Kj026796@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: steve@digitalbluesky.net (Steve) Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 17:28:04 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050510164801.02765818@mail.digitalbluesky.net> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL7] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: proper use of dump to backup a 5.3 box X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 21:28:07 -0000 > > This is a follow up to a question I posted not long ago about the best way > to do a real, complete backup of a freebsd 5.3 box I'm using at home. I > was looking at several options to do a complete backup so I could recover > my server (this is used at home for personal and development purposes) in > case of a hard drive failure or whatever. Originally I was leaning towards > rsync'ing dumps to another older freebsd box I have at home but I just > decided to put a 120 gig Western Digital USB drive on the server and backup > to that instead of trying to do it over the network. > > So I have this FAT32 120 gig drive connected to my P4 FreeBSD box that has > a 40 gig drive and it works great and everything. I created a > /mnt/usbdrive directory for this drive and it's mounted successfully. In > the /mnt/usbdrive directory I have two > subdirectories: /mnt/usbdrive/backups and /mnt/usbdrive/dumps. I am using > the .../backups directory to do a daily backup of selected directories from > the P4 box and I want to put my dumps from the in the .../dumps > directory. I read the man page for dump but I'm still a little unsure of > the proper way to use the command. Can someone suggest the best way to > actually execute the dump? (what flags and options, etc). Sorry if this is > n00bish I just want to do this right the first time. I think this is the > syntax I should use the first time: > > # dump -0u -f /mnt/usbdrive/dumps / Almost, but that would attempt to write the dump to a file called dumps in the /mnt/usbdrive/ directory. Also, you want the the -a switch when dumping to a file so it doesn't try to calculate media (eg tape) size and ask for second and third tapes. So, something more like dump 0auf /mnt/usbdrive/dumps/rootdump.20050510 / might be what you want. That would get you a dump of the whole root filesystem. If you have another file system such as /usr then a second part like dump 0auf /mnt/usbdrive/dumps/usrdump.20050510 /usr should be done, etc. > > Will this dump the entire file system to the usbdrive? I want to do a dump > once a month, what would the proper syntax be for doing an incremental dump? If you are doing dumps once per month, don't bother with incremental dumps. Do a full (level 0) dump each time. Keep three and throw away any older. To do a complete restore of the root file system, such as at a disk failure, you will need to boot from some other media. The fixit CD is a good choice. Download the CD 2 and keep it around somewhere safe for that eventuality. ////jerry > > Steve >