On 08/22/2014 03:08 PM, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
Why do you say to not use dd? I figured that would be the easiest as it seems to be the most simple command.
cat is even simpler! That's not the point. The point is using a tool that is suitable for the task.
That said however, I do suppose though that using tar or cpio and having one entire file is easier to move around, although without compression, HORRIBLY LARGE.
*IF* you could dd all of /home that would be large as well.
I have just double checked the size of /home directory and at 97GB, that is one MONSTER file so creating an archive is not advisable I would think.
That is a complete non-sequitor. The size of the archive is the same size as what you are dealing with. Distributions on LiveCD are often a single, compressed file that is mounted using FUSE. That's the whole OS, all binaries and script -- everyt9ing. As a single file. There would be nothing magic about having all of /home as single tar or cpio file.
So I am not looking at creating and archive file, merely an exact replica to enable bare-metal restore, if necessary, that I can write to a USB attached HDD device of 2TB owned by root.
"bare metal"? That would be a dd of the raw disk dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/useba And I would not advise that either!
I guess cp would work, but take AGES.
Look at the code: while ( readchar() ) writechar() But it *IS* a tree-walker, which dd is not.
My rsync version is 3.0.6 and SSH is not set-up so using rsync is apparently not possible, although given its a copy from a machine to a locally attached hdd, there is no security needed. Given its a local copy why is SSH a factor?
I've been using rsync for eyars for disk-to-disk copy WITHOUT ssh SSH is *NOT* repeat *NOT* required for disk-to-disk copy on the same machine. Its very clearly stated in the man page. Lots of example of that use rsync -av /src/foo /dest rsync -av /src/foo/ /dest/foo
So I'm stuck. How to not lose any data or set-up and configuration files but still do a fresh install of 13.1. Those set-up and config files I assume are in /etc and might be needed
Most of us do this be using rsync to save /home and whatever parts of /var might be relevant such as mail, dns, dhcp, crom ... A lot of what appears to be in /etc isn't, its actually symlinks and you need to save the target. Much of what _should_ be in the new /etc is generated by the install. Think hard about what parts of /etc you really want and what needs to be regenerated for the new system. Merely saving and restring /etc wholesale will break things. I can't tell you what, I can only tell you that you need to inspect and think about it.
I'm thinking more and more of rsync but think I would need to possibly change the ownership of the locally attached USB hdd to the same user as whom I want to backup.
No. If you do this as root at use the rsync flags to preserve that, or use the tar or cpio to preserve that, its a non-issue. All this is old hat, We've been doing it for more than a quarter of a century. We may not - most of us - be using tape any more, but the TAR format is still in use since 'tar' is a treewalker and preserves all the ownership & permission information. Most of your fears/objections are groundless and a RTFM should make that clear.
Help! I'm open to suggestions to accomplish what I seek, if possible.
${DEITY}-${EXPLETIVE} man, just get on with using rsync. This isn't rocket science; its not even computing science, it just a backup/restore. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org