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Randomlynessive
n00b
Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 6
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 Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:14 am Post subject: Backing up gentoo |
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| is there any easy way to back up gentoo? like, putting your entire installation into a massive tarball? and if so, how would i go about doint it? (btw, im pretty new to gentoo and linux/UNIX in general, so try to explain it in the simplest terms possible, thanks) |
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likewhoa
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2006
Posts: 778
Location: Brooklyn, New York
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:21 am Post subject: |
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there are plenty of guides that show how to accomplish this, my way is to simply use tar. here is how.
| Code: |
cd /
tar cvjp --exclude=sys --exclude=proc --exclude=dev --exclude=stage4.tar.bz2 --file stage4.tar.bz2 /
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then simply, untar it from the livecd and before you are about to | Code: | | mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev |
type this. | Code: | | cd /mnt/gentoo/dev;MAKEDEV generic |
. this should be all you need to do to restore from a
backup. |
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col
l33t
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 820
Location: Melbourne - Australia
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: |
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A simple backup of the root partition is:
cp -ax / /mnt/backup |
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Randomlynessive
n00b
Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| likewhoa wrote: | there are plenty of guides that show how to accomplish this, my way is to simply use tar. here is how.
| Code: |
cd /
tar cvjp --exclude=sys --exclude=proc --exclude=dev --exclude=stage4.tar.bz2 --file stage4.tar.bz2 /
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then simply, untar it from the livecd and before you are about to | Code: | | mount -o bind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev |
type this. | Code: | | cd /mnt/gentoo/dev;MAKEDEV generic |
. this should be all you need to do to restore from a
backup. |
so it works something like this: put everything in a tarball (called stage4) except the sys, proc and dev folders
then, when i load up the live cd, i just mount everything and extract everything to "/"
although, i dont understand the purpose of | Code: | | cd /mnt/gentoo/dev;MAKEDEV generic |
and i also dont understand why to exclude sys and proc, and to an extent dev (i have a reason in my head, but im not sure if its right)
thanks for the help, but i like to know _why_ i do things, rather than just remembering lines of code to input |
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likewhoa
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2006
Posts: 778
Location: Brooklyn, New York
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| col wrote: | A simple backup of the root partition is:
cp -ax / /mnt/backup |
it would be a waste of time to copy absolutely everything. /proc,/sys/, & /dev are all generated automatically by the kernel and or udev for /dev.
| Randomlynessive wrote: | although, i dont understand the purpose of
| likewhoa wrote: | | Code: |
cd /mnt/gentoo/dev;MAKEDEV generic |
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this step is needed since, you didn't tar up your /dev directory and MAKEDEV generic will create generic nodes that will be part of the initial /dev tree so that your system can successfully boot.
| Randomlynessive wrote: | | and i also dont understand why to exclude sys and proc, and to an extent dev (i have a reason in my head, but im not sure if its right) |
/proc is generated by the kernel when mounted by the system. /sys is also generated for you, and /dev is handled by udev.
Hope this explains it better for you. more links..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procfs#Linux - info on PROCFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysfs - info on SYSFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev - info on UDEV
Last edited by likewhoa on Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:38 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Randomlynessive
n00b
Joined: 29 Jul 2007
Posts: 6
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:31 am Post subject: |
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thanks likewhoa, you have been a great help
and to a lesser extent col, thanks for your contribution |
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attenpeter
n00b
Joined: 25 Nov 2006
Posts: 33
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col
l33t
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 820
Location: Melbourne - Australia
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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| likewhoa wrote: | | col wrote: | A simple backup of the root partition is:
cp -ax / /mnt/backup |
it would be a waste of time to copy absolutely everything. /proc,/sys/, & /dev are all generated automatically by the kernel and or udev for /dev.
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Read the man page. None this will have its archive bit set so will not copy when -a is being used. |
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likewhoa
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2006
Posts: 778
Location: Brooklyn, New York
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| Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:38 am Post subject: |
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| col wrote: | | likewhoa wrote: | | col wrote: | A simple backup of the root partition is:
cp -ax / /mnt/backup |
it would be a waste of time to copy absolutely everything. /proc,/sys/, & /dev are all generated automatically by the kernel and or udev for /dev.
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Read the man page. None this will have its archive bit set so will not copy when -a is being used. |
I do RTFM FYI! 
-x doesn't skip mount point directories so /proc,/sys, & /dev would be copied. |
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