In-use files on Linux, you can't do anything at all. I suppose you could attempt LVM snapshots, but that's crappy at best.
For in-use file backup, I recommend either a Netapp, or some other device with a file system more intelligent than EXT3, which is able to do filesystem snapshots (this is much better than a block-level LVM snapshot.) Imagine you have a program, such as mysqld, which opens files read-write, and keeps them that way through the entire operation of the process. At no time is a complete file ever written, and at no time is the file ever closed. It is 100% impossible to backup that file, any more recently than it was opened. But filesystems that do snapshotting (ZFS, Netapp, some others) can at least allow you to backup the file as it was, just before the most recent time it was opened. No matter what you do, if people (or processes) keep their files open indefinitely and never close, the most recent changes to that file are at risk. It's a problem that IT people must face, but not solve. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Scott Ehrlich > Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 9:04 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [BBLISA] rsync vs dump for in-use files? > > I'd like to get list consensus for which method of file > preservation/backup > does better for files in-use? This will be on a RHEL 5 server. > > Thanks. > > Scott > > _______________________________________________ > bblisa mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
