Re: copying root partition
On Fri, 5 Jun 1998, Bob Hilliard wrote:
: Rick Macdonald <Rick_Macdonald@calgary.shaw.wave.ca> writes:
: > > I like "cp -ax" for this task, because of its shortness.
: >
: > I told a friend to use "cp -a". I forgot about "-x", but he only has one
: > filesystem.
: >
: > However, the copy hung on the file /proc/kmsg. Would the -x have avoided
: > this? In the end, he had to use tar.
:
: cp -ax would have skipped /proc completely. Actually, your
: friend has more than one file system. proc is a virtual file system,
: mounted on the mount point /proc.
:
: When you copy an entire file system with cp -ax it skips any
: separate file systems, and doesn't even copy the mount points. So
: after copying, you have to check the directories that contained the
: mount points, and create them in the new system. I prefer to unmount
: as many separate files systems as possible before running cp -ax.
I realise this is practically a religious debate, but I'm going to
mention this anyway.
I don't know whether `cp -ax' skips the mount point or not; I never use
cp -ax. I use two commands found on every debian system:
`find . -xdev -print | cpio -padm /target'
This command should be executed from the source directory. So, if you
wanted to copy the root filesystem to another partition (currently
mounted on /mnt), you would:
cd /
find . -xdev -print | cpio -padm /mnt
Works every time. Handles device files, doesn't recurse down other
devices, but DOES copy the mount points.
I'm sure this will start a flame war; it always does. I'm not
interested in participating, thanks.
--
Nathan Norman
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mailto://finn@midco.net http://www.midco.net
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