Joe Krahn wrote:
>> Rsync theoretically could read/write to block devices, it just refuses.
>> But, you'd have to keep the filesystem unmounted for the duration and if
>> you don't let it build a separate new copy you'll end up with your
>> remote copy corrupted if the live system dies mid-run.
> I guess the right approach is to have two remote filesystems. There's no
> reason that the 'temporary' copy not also be a block device. You could
> have one remote system unmounted, and clone it from the unmounted
> system. You could then clone the 1st and 2nd remote devices. That way,
> one of the 3 would always be accessible.
Yes that would work - but you can also loopback-mount a filesystem image
in a file so you'd be able to restore from it whether the remote copy
was a block device or not. And I think DRBD would be a better approach
than rsync if you want to work directly with the partitions.
>>> But, why do you really need to clone a raw disk instead of just rsyncing
>>> the content? A raw device copy means that you will end up synchronizing
>>> deleted file fragments, and you will need to have the filesystem
>>> unmounted.
>> In the context of backuppc, the number of files and hardlinks often
>> makes it impractical to rsync the archive contents.
>>
>
> OK; Many files shouldn't be too hard, but I can see the problem when
> combined with large numbers of hardlinks.
Rsync transfers the whole directory tree before starting so there is a
some per-file RAM overhead.
> If it is only for BackupPC
> files, the most efficient approach would be to build a feature into
> BackupPC. Any other tool is going to have to hunt for hard links.
Backuppc doesn't really know anything about the hardlinks either once
they are made - which is why they work so well... There is a tool to
help copy an archive but it is fairly slow too.
--
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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