[H-GEN] Cloning Linux System

Greg Black gjb at gbch.net
Sun Jun 5 20:27:42 EDT 2005


On 2005-06-06, Stephen Thorne wrote:

> Either way, neither dump or dd are the tools to use for backing up a
> live system imho, you're better off using netcat and tar or rsync.

Reliable backups of live file systems are not possible in the
general case, although they may be achieved in some cases.  Any
file that is constantly being updated (e.g., a log file for a
long-running busy daemon such as a web server or mail server) is
going to present problems.  If it changes between the time the
backup process first accesses it and the time it completes its
read, it will be wrong.  Going back and repeating the read will
be subject to the same problems.

So long as this is understood, then live system backups can be
useful.  Where it bites you is in cases where something like a
log file gets truncated in mid line and your log file reporting
tools have a hissy fit over malformed data.

Greg




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