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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Default Simple backup questions

Hi There
To backup a FreeBSD file system to an external usb hard-drive the command is:
Code:
#dump -OLuf /path/to/external/drive /dev/ad0sla
right?
The only thing is that i backed up my MacBook first, so i think it is formatted for HFS+. So do i need to re-format the drive in order to back up FreeBSD filesystems?. I also want to back-up my OpenBSD filesystems on the same drive. However the only system that i have with a windowing system, and GUI utilities is the MacBook, at the moment. So do i need to format this external drive or should i leave it un-formatted. if i need to format it what should i format it as?.
If I'm just using it for storage do i need to format it?. Can i just enter the above dump command to put it on the HFS+ formatted drive?.
I'm sorry to ask so many questions. I've just never backed up whole systems before.
Thank you for your time, and any replies you might send
regards unixjingleman
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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You can check the filesystem type by using fdisk on the external drive, usually /dev/da0 under FreeBSD.

Code:
# fdisk /dev/da0
For an example see http://www.daemonforums.org/showthre...5708#post36922

Usually external drives are formatted with DOS/FAT32 or NTFS.
The problem with FAT32 is the maximum file size of 4 GB. NTFS cannot be written to reliably on most BSDs.

Re: command to dump a fileystem
You forgot the '-a' option. See http://www.daemonforums.org/showthre...5708#post36923

If your drive is HFS+ and FreeBSD does not support reading/writing HFS+, FreeBSD cannot write the dump file to it.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Thank you very much for your fast reply. So what should i do to the drive(external usb) in order to back up my whole FreeBSD and OpenBSD systems?(i don't mind if i can't back up my MacBook on the same drive. My other BSD's are of more importance)
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Why don't you first check with fdisk which file sytem is on the drive?

You could format the disk with OpenBSD UFS, which FreeBSD also can read/write.
If the disk is big enough you could make one partition/slice for FreeBSD and another one for OpenBSD. Or even a third one with HFS+
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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When you put, say ads1a, on an external drive do you have to use disklabel on the external hard-drive, once you've used fdisk, to create the partitions first?. Or can you just allocate space and whack 'em on, once you've allocated space using fdisk?. Because when you're using dump aren't you copying the partitions anyway?
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Old 27th February 2011
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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You can dump to files instead of partitions.
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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In your case dump will write to file, so it needs a filesystem to place the file on it.

With both FreeBSD and OpenBSD you don't need to label the disk. FreeBSD will access the drive with it's slice numer, say /dev/da0s1.
OpenBSD will create a virtual or spoofed disklabel, which you can see with running the OpenBSD disklabel on the external USB disk.

If all computers are networked, then there another less complicated option. Just tell dump to send the dump over the network to the Apple box, having the external USB drive connected to it. I do this with my OpenBSD router/firewall.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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But otherwise you have to dump to partitions, not just slices?

Sorry that reply was to BSDfan666 not j65nko

Last edited by J65nko; 27th February 2011 at 08:58 PM.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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So, for the non-networked way, all i need to do is use fdisk and not disklabel. Then run the dump command?.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Oh sorry. So in order to not use disklabel you have to use fdisk, then dd?
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Dumping files from OpenBSD box through the network to another box. In your case, Apple box

I will use two OpenBSD boxes.
parmenides is the one whose "/home' directory will be dumped through the network to host hercules.

On hercules start nc (netcat) to listen for data on port 4000 and redirect the output to file:

Code:
j65nko@hercules[~] nc -l 4000 >firewall.dump
So hercules will receive the dumpfile. In your case this will a file, on your Apple box, on your mounted HFS+ external USB disk.

Now I ssh in to parmenides, become root and run the dump
Code:
j65nko@parmenides[~] su - root
Password: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

root@parmenides[~] dump -0 -a -u -f - /home  | nc hercules.utp.xnet 4000
  DUMP: Ignoring u flag for subdir dump
  DUMP: Dumping sub files/directories from /
  DUMP: Dumping file/directory /home
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Sun Feb 27 07:08:46 2011
  DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch
  DUMP: Dumping /dev/rwd0a (/) to standard output
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 131807 tape blocks.
  DUMP: Volume 1 started at: Sun Feb 27 07:08:46 2011
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
  DUMP: 1.66% done, finished in 4:56
  DUMP: 3.32% done, finished in 4:52
On parmenides a check with file(1)
Code:
j65nko@hercules[~]file firewall.dump
                                        
firewall.dump: new-fs dump file (little endian), This dump Sun Feb
27 07:08:46 2011, Previous dump Thu Jan  1 01:00:00 1970, Volume
1, Level zero, type: tape header, Label none, Filesystem a subset
of /, Device /dev/wd0a, Host parmenides.utp.xnet, Flags 3
You will notice that the OpenBSD dump can do something what other dumps cannot: make a dump of a sub-directory, instead on a complete file system. With one limitation, a sub-directory dump only can be level 0. But it is a nice way to test your backup strategy
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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Thanks a million dude.Why is that so much easier than just writing straight out to an external usb drive though?.

Last edited by unixjingleman; 27th February 2011 at 09:48 PM.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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What about:
Code:
dd if=/dev/ad0s1a conv=noerror, sync | ssh macbook "cat > root.dump"
?
That might be more secure also. Whada ya think?
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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While more secure, that will also copy the unused space of your disk, while dump only will backup the space actually used. Not so nice if you have 100GB free space

In my example, for security reasons, you can also use ssh instead of nc.

RE: filesystem on your USB disk
I am not sure about your Apple OS, but both FreeBSD and OpenBSD can write to the Linux ext2fs filesystem.
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Old 27th February 2011
unixjingleman unixjingleman is offline
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And read from it as well yeah?
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Old 27th February 2011
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Do a ls -l /sbin/mount* to find out.
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