Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] tar a brand new Gentoo install to a USB drive for safe keeping?
Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 03:22:00
Message-Id: 5bdc1c8b0805041954m8c962c5v51884223bc426219@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] tar a brand new Gentoo install to a USB drive for safe keeping? by Mark Knecht
1 On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
2 > On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Mark Shields <laebshade@×××××.com> wrote:
3 > >
4 > > Look into what's called a "stage 4 backup":
5 > > http://blinkeye.ch/mediawiki/index.php/GNU/Linux_System_Backup_Script_(stage4)
6 > >
7 > > I've had to actually use it once, and it worked fine. It already excludes
8 > > the appropriate files:
9 > >
10 > > /dev
11 > > /lost+found
12 > > /mnt
13 > > /proc
14 > > /sys
15 > > /tmp
16 > > /usr/portage
17 > > /usr/src
18 > > /var/log
19 > > /var/tmp
20 > >
21 > > /var/db
22 > > /var/cache/edb
23 > >
24 > > It doesn't back up the MBR or the partition tables (primary or logical),
25 > > though you could edit the script to do that.
26 > >
27 > > --
28 > > - Mark Shields
29 >
30 > Thanks Mark. That looks interesting.
31 >
32 > I'm not clear about the process of actually making the backup. This
33 > get run on a live file system? I suppose the things it excludes if it
34 > does are the things that might be changing?
35 >
36 > - Mark
37 >
38
39 So I tried this out. Although I had a couple of directory issues
40 getting it ready to go it did run eventually.
41
42 My issue at this point is a matter of gaining confidence that it
43 backed up the right stuff. Considering my file system usage the file
44 size seems smallish at 1.2G.
45
46 lightning ~ # df -h
47 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
48 /dev/sda2 9.2G 6.5G 2.3G 75% /
49 udev 10M 184K 9.9M 2% /dev
50 /dev/sda6 3.7G 740M 2.8G 21% /usr/src
51 /dev/sda8 14G 11G 2.5G 82% /home
52 shm 497M 0 497M 0% /dev/shm
53 none 497M 0 497M 0% /tmp/jack
54 lightning ~ #
55
56 The terminal where it ran said it backed up about 3.3GB into a 1.2GB
57 file. My file system usage (for a minimal backup) is roughly the 6.5GB
58 on / since minimal doesn't back up /home and /usr/src which I
59 convieniently have on separate partitions anyway. I wonder if half of
60 that 6.6GB really isn't needed?
61
62 Anyway, the scripts seemed to have worked, but how to verify? That's
63 the question.
64
65 Could I restore this backup into a different subdirectory somewhere
66 and then chroot into it?
67
68 - Mark
69 --
70 gentoo-user@l.g.o mailing list