Anything specific to keep in mind restoring from rsync ? (Re: Any reason to prefer 11.1 over 10.3 ?)

[Paul Pathiakis]

Hi,

I've gone another route.  Try backuppc.  It's a little harder to get 
rolling with, but it's a viable OSS backup solution.  It handles any 
*nix via rsync.  Also, rsync can handle just about all types of files 
including links.  *shrug*  Just saying....

P.


On 08/18/2017 08:59, Ian Smith wrote:
> In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 689, Issue 5, Message: 14
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2017 10:07:35 +0000 Manish Jain <bourne.identity at hotmail.com> wrote:
>   > On 08/18/17 13:19, Matt Smith wrote:
>   > > On Aug 18 07:35, Manish Jain wrote:
>   > >> Hi,
>   > >>
>   > >> I am going to have to install FreeBSD again on a box on which 10.3R
>   > >> works well. Is there any reason I should prefer 11.1R ?
>   > >>
>   > >> Thanks for any tips.
>   > >> Manish Jain
>   > >
>   > > The main reason for 11.1 would be the expected end of life date when
>   > > 10.3 will no longer be supported. As you can see from
>   > > https://www.freebsd.org/security/security.html#sup that is April 30,
>   > > 2018 whereas 11.1 will be 3 months after the release of 11.2.
>
> I see that 10.4 is due out in October.  Unlikely to be an extended type
> release, but I expect it will still use the old release model, so should
> be good for a year or so .. but if anyone knows better, please say.
>
>   > > Obviously you can upgrade from 10.3 to 10.4, or from 10.3 to 11.2, and
>   > > from 11.1 to 11.2 quite easily, but it's easier to start with 11 than it
>   > > is to start with 10 and do a major version upgrade.
>   > >
>   > > Unless there are any strange issues particular to your hardware 10 and
>   > > 11 should work identically really.
>   > >
>   >
>   > Hi Matt/Others,
>   >
>   > I decided that a fresh install would be too much effort considering the
>   > ease of rsync to back up existing data.
>
> rsync is great for 'user data', but I'm not sure whether it handles hard
> links properly, which you'll want for system directories at least.
>
> Do you have some reason not to use the canonical dump(8) and restore(8)?
> I see you're using the Linux-style 'all on /' approach, but dump(8) only
> backs up used blocks and you can compress the output and pipe that back
> into restore(8): see the handbook and/or wonkity.com for good recipes.
>
>   > The primary reason I am in the current muddle is that the / partition
>   > has to be made bigger ( 30G -> 40G ). What I have done is rsynced (with
>   > some exclusions) / to /mnt/backup
>   >
>   > I have actually never restored data with rsync earlier. Precisely what
>   > should I be doing to return copy out /mnt/backup over /  ?
>   >
>   > This is what I actually intend : if anyone spots something stupid,
>   > please chime in now : - )
>   >
>   > 1) Install 10.3 again on the larger root partition
>   >
>   > 2) Reboot with the optical media and drop into a fixit shell
>   >
>   > 3) Mount the intended slash at /tmp and the partition holding the
>   > rsynced backup at /mnt
>
> If you're going with rsync, I strongly suggest not using /tmp; all sorts
> of things may use that for, well, temporary files during the operation.
>
> Better perhaps using /media, /dist or some directory you make: /mnt2 ?
>
>   > 4) rsync from /mnt to /tmp
>
> Or restore(8) from a dump on say /mnt to (eg) /mnt2 .. but then what?
>
>   > Is the above a decent approach ?
>   >
>   > Thanks for any insight/suggestions.
>
> There are many ways :)  I've always done well with dump/restore on UFS -
> though I'm only assuming you're using UFS?  ZFS needs a different story.
>
> cheers, Ian
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