Re: [gentoo-amd64] Quick rsync backup before changing a RAID

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 3:21 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> Is 'using ACLs' one of those things that if you don't know then you
> are not? I just run basic Gentoo here. All installs done as per the
> install guide. I don't even use LVM or anything fancy. (Which is
> likely part of why I'm having to reconfigure as much as I am but so be
> it.)

Gentoo can potentially make use of them if you're using POSIX
capabilities, but I think that has to be enabled by USE flag or
FEATURE.  I think you might also have to enable them in fstab (and the
kernel as well, though that is likely enabled by default).  Chances
are you'd know if you were using them, and it would only apply to
stuff installed by portage (generally binaries).  Oh, and using POSIX
capabilities is a good thing (less suid root binaries).

One thing to mention - I'm not sure how much data you're talking
about, but if it is a lot and downtime is a concern you could probably
get creative and avoid some copying.  You could copy the files onto an
LVM vg, and then after your RAID is set up you could move the logical
volume onto your RAID, which is an online operation.  (Ie set up your
USB drive as LVM, copy the files over, adjust your mounts so that the
USB drive is mounted where you want the files, and at this point
they're in production.  Then get your RAID set up, add it to the
volume group, and pvmove the USB drive so that it gets moved to your
RAID.  Then remove the USB drive from your volume group and you're in
the final config, with no further need to adjust mountpoints since
they're already pointed to LVM.)  I've done a lot of messing around
with online migrations of RAID and LVM - quite handy when you have
lots of stuff like mythtv recordings that you don't want to have
offline backups of.

Rich