Hi All;
I've setup a cron backup script to backup my Fedora 10 laptop - mostly in case a new yum update breaks my system.
I'm currently excluding /proc but when the rsync script hits the /sys directory I get lots of read errors like this:
sys/module/vmmon/initstate rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/initstate": No data available (61) sys/module/vmmon/refcnt rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/refcnt": No data available (61) sys/module/vmmon/srcversion rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/srcversion": No data available (61)
Questions:
- should I exclude /sys from my rsync backup ? - Is it safe to restore my system without restoring /proc and /sys ? - If I do need to restore can I simply do an rsync like this: rsync -va /backup-location /system-location (i.e. rsync -va /stage/backup/etc /etc)
Will rsync overwrite the files say in /etc with the backed up files even if the current /etc files are newer than the backed up files.
Here's my backup script if it helps: # cat run_rsync.sh #!/bin/bash
for I in `cat dirlist` do echo "[$I]" echo "==========" rsync -av /${I} /stage/backup done
and here's the dirlist file: # cat dirlist bin boot dev docs download etc home lib lib64 lost+found media mnt opt root sbin selinux srv sys tmp usr var
as always, thanks in advance...
Kevin Kempter wrote:
Hi All;
I've setup a cron backup script to backup my Fedora 10 laptop - mostly in case a new yum update breaks my system.
I'm currently excluding /proc but when the rsync script hits the /sys directory I get lots of read errors like this:
sys/module/vmmon/initstate rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/initstate": No data available (61) sys/module/vmmon/refcnt rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/refcnt": No data available (61) sys/module/vmmon/srcversion rsync: read errors mapping "/sys/module/vmmon/srcversion": No data available (61)
Questions:
- should I exclude /sys from my rsync backup ?
Yes, you should exclude /sys, /proc (they're created on the fly by the kernel...they're not real directories) and /dev.
- Is it safe to restore my system without restoring /proc and /sys ?
Yes, they're created by the kernel at boot time.
- If I do need to restore can I simply do an rsync like this: rsync -va /backup-location /system-location
(i.e. rsync -va /stage/backup/etc /etc)
Will rsync overwrite the files say in /etc with the backed up files even if the current /etc files are newer than the backed up files.
Those last two questions are related. If you specify "-u" as well ("rsync -vau /stage/backup/etc /etc"), newer files on the receiver (/etc in your cited case) won't be overwritten. If you're running SELinux, have a looksee at the rsync_selinux man page, too.
Here's my backup script if it helps: # cat run_rsync.sh #!/bin/bash
for I in `cat dirlist` do echo "[$I]" echo "==========" rsync -av /${I} /stage/backup done
and here's the dirlist file: # cat dirlist bin boot dev docs download etc home lib lib64 lost+found media mnt opt root sbin selinux srv sys tmp usr var
as always, thanks in advance...
If you have the space in your backup directory and you want to back up the whole system, I'd just:
rsync -avu --exclude-from=/etc/backup-exclude / /stage/backup
and put the directories you DON'T want backed up in /etc/backup-exclude:
/sys /proc /dev
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
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