Re: Backup problem using "cp"

[Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net>]

On 05/07/2018 07:01 AM, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Richard Owlett wrote:
> > richard@debian-jan13:~$ stat / | fgrep Device
> > Device: 80eh/2062d      Inode: 2           Links: 22
> > richard@debian-jan13:~$ stat /media | fgrep Device
> > Device: 80eh/2062d      Inode: 131073      Links: 5
>
> "/media" was not the directory to examine.
> You need to examine the directory which you gave as second argument to cp.
> In your initial post of this thread the cp command is quoted as
>
>    cp -ax /  "/media/richard/MISC
>    backups/dev_sda14/"
>
> (Dunno whether the line break in that mail is significant.)

No the _apparent_ line break was an artifact of email quoting process.
I can't rerun the diagnostic at the moment - hardware fully occupied 
with testing my proposed workaround, which works so far but progress 
resembles molasses running uphill on Pluto in winter ;/


> > I gather that "cp" is then an inappropriate tool.
>
> That's not decided yet.
>
> If your cp target directory had a different device number, then cp option -x
> did not what it is supposed to do.
>
> But if your target directory was not the mount point of the USB disk and
> not inside the filesystem of the USB disk, then you made a mistake by
> giving that directory as target.

Understood.

> > "tar" is inappropriate for my preferences - I was attempting to use "cp" as
> > there would be multiple files &/or directories as input *and* output.
>
> You could use multiple tar commands.
> (I doubt that you can talk cp into addressing more than one target.)

Communication confusion.
My goal was to copy root and its sub-directory to a directory on another 
physical device.

> Have a nice day :)
>
> Thomas